8 ms·

Marc Andreessen at Startup School [video]

120 points by craigcannon 10y ago

rebekk99 10y ago
"I think that the role of the warm referral is misinterpreted." absolutely agree with him here, but wish he would elaborate on how to "get in the network", which basically means you show up and you show up bringing value
timanglade 10y ago
I grossly underestimated the value of a warm intro in Silicon Valley before getting here, and still did before I started working for a VC firm. Coming in as an entrepreneur from smaller startup ecosystems in Boston & Europe, I was a bit puzzled by it — it seemed like unnecessary decorum or just a cheap ploy by VCs to maintain their inbox zero streak. Beyond the a16z process explained by Mr. Andreessen here, I should note that any third-party intro (to say nothing of a warm intro) will drastically enhance your chances at almost any firm even if they don’t require it. It’s a sign of hustle, diligence & genuine interest from entrepreneurs, even if the person that introduces you isn’t particularly warm about you or friendly with the partner in question. You’d be surprised how many founders fail to display that hustle/diligence/interest in discussions with VCs! I wouldn’t overthink the warm bit too much. Usually just by virtue of being willing to make the intro your contact will be warm and exude warmth. But I’ve also seen partner take intros from people they barely know/remember/trust if the pitch is compelling. Just make sure you stay connected to partners and potential connectors way ahead of time, and that they know you & your business. When the time comes, an intro will be a no-brainer.
- minimaxir 10y ago
  > I should note that any third-party intro (to say nothing of a warm intro) will drastically enhance your chances at almost any firm even if they don’t require it. It’s a sign of hustle, diligence & genuine interest from entrepreneurs The counterargument is that this attitude reinforces Silicon Valley as a non-meritocratic who-you-know culture instead of one that optimizes producing good products. (case in point, Andreessen's investment in Lucas Duplan/Clinkle) Many founders can't get that kind of access, often due to class or other systemic factors. It's not "hustle," and in my opinion, that attitude is an albatross on the startup ecosystem.
  - nugget 10y ago
    You can still hustle from the edges inward, you just have to be a bit more creative about it. I probably can't hit up Marc directly but I bet I could find people who know him well enough to provide an intro but who aren't so well known themselves that they would ignore a cold call/email from me. Any firm you want to pitch has associates, secretaries, IT people, lawyers, and somebody who waters the plants, all of whom are there every day interacting with everybody else. It's a hustle-filter, not foolproof, not perfect, but efficient enough.
  - timanglade 10y ago
    I’m not making any value judgement here about the system; in fact I’d probably agree with you that it’s not the most efficient it could be at funding the absolute best ideas from the absolute best people. I’m just saying, if you’re trying to get funding from Silicon Valley VCs today, this is how the game is played, for better or worse.
  - gregpilling 10y ago
    Marc Andreesen will chat with you on Twitter. Short replies, but at least he notices. Be compelling, even if you are on the wrong side of the world.
    - minimaxir 10y ago
      That is not a good example of VC access since a) Andreessen quit Twitter a month ago and b) Andreessen is so infamous for blocking people on Twitter for having dissenting opinions that it was a meme. (http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/23/technology/marc-andreessen-block-twitter/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/23/technology/marc-andreessen-b...)
      - gregpilling 10y ago
        Fair enough. My exchange with him on twitter was minor and over a year ago. Other VCs are on twitter, as are people in their networks. I think that it is inauthentic to claim that there is no access to VC. You could reach them from the South Pole or anyplace that can get mobile data. The tough part is to stand out, not to get 5 seconds of time. in the video he says that they fund 20 out of 2000 warm introductions, and probably 20,000 cold ones. This challenge applies to all entrepreneurs though, those in San Jose and the South Pole. Only 20 will get chosen.
- lpolovets 10y ago
  I think it depends on the recipient. For example, I'm a VC and I give ~0 weight to intros from people I don't know well. I get a lot of emails like: "Hey, remember how we met once at a demo day in 2014? Well my friend is raising for her company... do you want to talk to her? The pitch deck is attached." When I read that, I decide what to do based on the pitch deck, not the intro from someone I don't know. If someone cold emailed me with the same deck, I think I'd make the same decision.
- downandout 10y ago
  It's rather ironic that many of the most famous people in the VC industry actually publish their email addresses [1], and then those same people will refuse any deal that comes to them this way. It's almost as if these addresses are there to perpetuate the myth that Silicon Valley is open to all comers as long as they've made something great, when the reality is that it's only open to a tiny sliver of entrepreneurs with great networking skills and/or those that are Stanford students/alumni. [1] example: http://www.greylock.com/team/#reid-hoffman http://www.greylock.com/team/#reid-hoffman
- vonnik 10y ago
  Another way of thinking about the warm-intro suggestion is that most investors are overwhelmed with pitches and need a basic filter. Other expert humans are still the best filter they have. Which is kind of too bad, because all of those humans also face the same constraints on their time, network and expertise. While it may be far-fetched, it's interesting to think about how we might create a more automatic filter for startups that would surface those both of interest to the VC and with some chance of success, relying on self-reported data in Crunchbase and Angel List, biographical data about the founding team and its network, and maybe press and analyst reports about an industry.
- graycat 10y ago
  I tried to get interest in Silicon Valley for my project. I'm in NYS US. I tried a lot of advice on how to contact VCs. All my efforts were a huge waste of time. So, I got a lot of advice, about introductions, how to write a pitch deck, and more. As far as I can tell, all of that advice was nonsense and, for me, a big waste of time. Sure, I could get an introduction from one of my Ph.D. dissertation advisers, past president of one of the world's best research universities with one of the most famous computer science departments. But I doubt that many or any VCs know this guy personally and in that case I would have insulted my former dissertation adviser, the VC, and myself -- no thanks. Once I did get a warm introduction from the CIO of one of the world's most famous companies, very successful, and famous for a lot of use of technology. As far as I could tell, the warm introduction was, for the VC, just a throwaway. A waste for the CIO, the VC, and me. Bummer. Really, an introduction is the VC having others do part of the VCs work, and this should not be justified: E.g., some of the standard advice is to write a very short, general pitch deck, with only a few foils and only a few words per foil, with the only purpose being to get the VC interested enough to ask for more information. Well, if this is the purpose of the first contact, no way should I bother the president of a high end university or the CIO of a top company; instead, the VC can just glance at a few foils and words in a PDF file, type "Sounds good. I'm interested. Please send more." and hit Reply. To be more clear on what VCs are not responding to, my project is to get the world's best solution, much better than anything else, for a problem that is pressing for nearly all users of the Internet, in the US and around the world. So, some back of the envelope arithmetic is 5 ads per Web page 10 pages per usage $2 per 1000 ads displayed 2 * 10**9 usages per week 52 weeks a year 5 * 10 * 2 * 2 * 10**9 * 52 / 1000 = 10,400,000,000 dollars of revenue per year. Status: Production quality software -- from carefully designed, highly scalable software and server farm architecture -- written and running with no known problems, currently in alpha test. All that information above has been essentially ignored by essentially every well known VC firm in Silicon Valley. So, if that doesn't work, what does? Well, about all that is left is what is still promising but nearly never in the advice. So, here is what is left: Go ahead with the business. Go live. Get publicity, users, and revenue. Have significant traction growing rapidly. Wait for the VCs to contact you. Of course, I'm a solo founder, CEO, CTO, CIO, Software VP, all of the development team, Server Farm and Network VP, ..., janitor. So, by the time my company has traction significant and growing rapidly, if the project will work at all, then soon it should have plenty of revenue for rapid growth. If the growth happens, then there will be plenty of after tax earnings to make me financially successful. That is, the cost for me to run the server farm will fall quicly to less than 1% of revenue with 99+% of the revenue pre-tax earnings. One server from less than $1000 in parts should have the capacity to generate $200,000+ a month in revenue. For a solo founder, why then take equity funding? By the way, it's all safe for work, legal, ethical, squeaky clean, etc. Still, essentially no one on Sand Hill Road gives a sh_t. Okay: They have their ways of making money, and I have mine. Apparently we have nothing in common. Lesson: I no longer place much value on advice for how to contact VCs. Or, if they are at all interested, then they will contact you. If there is a mob of them on the front lawn waving stacks of $1000 dollar bills at you and screaming for you to take the money, then maybe open the door and otherwise call the police to have them run out of the neighborhood! That is, if you are a solo founder, then by the time they want you, you won't want them. So, what ARE the VCs looking for? How about young, naive founders, traction significant and growing rapidly, no earnings, five founders, all credit cards maxed out, each founder with a pregnant wife, and eager to sign any term sheet.
happytrails 10y ago
Side note, guy sounds out of breath...
Dowwie 10y ago
Would a YC member please create a youtube playlist for 2016?
- hnarayanan 10y ago
  Until then: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Startup+School+SV+2016%22 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Startup+Scho... :)
- craigcannon 10y ago
  Sure thing - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5NUadFuTNjcpHsWUVBueHSh https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5NUadFuTNjc... More videos coming :)
csinguva 10y ago
His comments where awesome about ML. Must watch
graycat 10y ago
I watched Marc's interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NEOR0AJsziE https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NEOR... Here are my reactions: As a preliminary note, Silicon Valley, Marc, and the entrepreneurs are all looking for things that are exceptionally good. Then: "Professional CEO". What Marc describes is an SVP Marketing or at best a COO. Marc lists as the tasks of a CEO as marketing, sales, finance, recruiting, etc. Nope: For each of those there is a VP, SVP, etc. Over them all is maybe a COO. The CEO is none of those things. Sorry, Marc. The problem with his professional CEO as the actual CEO instead of the founder is that the pro CEO doesn't have a good understanding of the vision for the future of the industry or the company and is not able to evaluate technical projects within the company or evaluate and hire technical people or leaders. So, the pro CEO is basically and at best one trying to SELL, SELL, SELL the EXISTING product/service. So, right rush out and sell 300 bps dial up modems, and keep growing to 9600 bps but forget about coaxial cable modems, wireless, and fiber. Marc wants the CEO to be a cracker jack buggy whip salesman, buggy whip production manager, buggy whip sales channel expert, etc. when Henry Ford is bringing out the Model T. Bummer. Marc mentions Tom Watson, Jr. who one day, when IBM was still with punched cards and electro mechanical equipment, mentioned to his father (IIRC): "There's a guy at Columbia. I don't know what he's doing, but he's doing it 200,000 times a second." Well, Tom, Jr. should have been much farther ahead on that theme. Being behind that way is part of why IBM had to play desperate catchup with System 360 and still missed out on a lot that Burroughs, DEC, etc. had. And soon IBM was just blind to what was in Multics, DEC VAX, the future of x86, etc. IBM VM? First done at IBM Cambridge Research Center as CP67/CMS just as a means of time-sharing operating system development. The real power of VM was missed for a long time. IBM was awash in people ready, willing, able, and eager to do great things for IBM in operating systems, system security, file systems, programming languages, etc. -- at one time one such person lamented "Three times in my career I tried to help IBM in operating systems, and three times I broke my pick trying.". Bummer. Marc has general partners "who have been through the struggle". Well, that's like having a lot of steam engine experts at the beginning of electric motors. In fact, the nature of "the struggle" is changing. To do well seeing what's new, Marc is looking in the wrong place. There are better places to look: E.g., in 1940, the US military was really smart and didn't plan the new weapons by talking to people who had "been through the struggle" in WWI with artillery, battleships, and biplanes. Instead, what was crucial was Reynold's number in fluid flow (the reason we got rid of biplanes), radar, radio, high resolution cameras, sonar, monoplanes, the proximity fuse, torpedoes, computers, super charged engines, aluminum in airplanes, encryption, code breaking, and the A-bomb. Nearly all of that was from people with more fundamental backgrounds than having been "through the struggle" of WWI. Marc needs people with more fundamental backgrounds. Marc talks about "the shit", just "all the stuff that happens". Well, in poorly planned and run projects, yes. But, J. Oppenheimer got the A-bomb ready on time, about as soon as Nimitz, MacArthur, and Boeing had Guam and the B-29 ready. A well planned and run project has a lot less "shit". Admiral Rickover did the same with the US nuclear submarines. The US Navy did the same with their version of GPS, some years before GPS. Similarly for Keyhole -- before the Hubble, essentially a Hubble but aimed at the earth. Lockheed did the same with the SR-71 -- Mach 3, 80,000 feet, 2000 mile range, never shot down. Etc. Marc has seen a lot of "shit" because he has seen a lot of poorly planned and run projects because he doesn't know where to look for good projects. Marc mentioned that his firm has a big "matrix" that helps a new CEO with selling, buying, funding, recruiting, etc. Okay. At times that might help. But, take recruiting: The whole goal of a VC funded company is to be exceptional. Well, I question if Marc's firm is able to select the needed exceptional people, and later in the interview there is good evidence that he can't. I have to move on. But, in short, to me, the worst thing Marc said was on how a CEO should evaluate VCs and engineers: Marc's main technique was recommendations. Wrong. Badly wrong. Here Marc is asking the CEO of hopefully a very exceptional company to draw from the knowledge of the general environment instead of using his own exceptionally good abilities, which necessarily we hope he has, to make much better, exceptionally good, decisions himself. Similarly Marc is impressed by computer science, AI, and ML. Nope. For the needed exceptional companies in information technology, f'get about computer science: Instead look more broadly in the QA section of the library, especially at selected topics in pure and applied math. There will see AI/ML as mostly special cases of statistics which is a special case of applied math which is a special case of pure math. Better to look at pure/applied math and mathematical statistics.
4714 10y ago
What are the best tools for building and maintaining your network? Facebook?

120 points by craigcannon 10y ago

"I think that the role of the warm referral is misinterpreted." absolutely agree with him here, but wish he would elaborate on how to "get in the network", which basically means you show up and you show up bringing value

timanglade 10y ago

I grossly underestimated the value of a warm intro in Silicon Valley before getting here, and still did before I started working for a VC firm. Coming in as an entrepreneur from smaller startup ecosystems in Boston & Europe, I was a bit puzzled by it — it seemed like unnecessary decorum or just a cheap ploy by VCs to maintain their inbox zero streak. Beyond the a16z process explained by Mr. Andreessen here, I should note that any third-party intro (to say nothing of a warm intro) will drastically enhance your chances at almost any firm even if they don’t require it. It’s a sign of hustle, diligence & genuine interest from entrepreneurs, even if the person that introduces you isn’t particularly warm about you or friendly with the partner in question. You’d be surprised how many founders fail to display that hustle/diligence/interest in discussions with VCs! I wouldn’t overthink the warm bit too much. Usually just by virtue of being willing to make the intro your contact will be warm and exude warmth. But I’ve also seen partner take intros from people they barely know/remember/trust if the pitch is compelling. Just make sure you stay connected to partners and potential connectors way ahead of time, and that they know you & your business. When the time comes, an intro will be a no-brainer.

minimaxir 10y ago
> I should note that any third-party intro (to say nothing of a warm intro) will drastically enhance your chances at almost any firm even if they don’t require it. It’s a sign of hustle, diligence & genuine interest from entrepreneurs The counterargument is that this attitude reinforces Silicon Valley as a non-meritocratic who-you-know culture instead of one that optimizes producing good products. (case in point, Andreessen's investment in Lucas Duplan/Clinkle) Many founders can't get that kind of access, often due to class or other systemic factors. It's not "hustle," and in my opinion, that attitude is an albatross on the startup ecosystem.
- nugget 10y ago
  You can still hustle from the edges inward, you just have to be a bit more creative about it. I probably can't hit up Marc directly but I bet I could find people who know him well enough to provide an intro but who aren't so well known themselves that they would ignore a cold call/email from me. Any firm you want to pitch has associates, secretaries, IT people, lawyers, and somebody who waters the plants, all of whom are there every day interacting with everybody else. It's a hustle-filter, not foolproof, not perfect, but efficient enough.
- timanglade 10y ago
  I’m not making any value judgement here about the system; in fact I’d probably agree with you that it’s not the most efficient it could be at funding the absolute best ideas from the absolute best people. I’m just saying, if you’re trying to get funding from Silicon Valley VCs today, this is how the game is played, for better or worse.
- gregpilling 10y ago
  Marc Andreesen will chat with you on Twitter. Short replies, but at least he notices. Be compelling, even if you are on the wrong side of the world.
  - minimaxir 10y ago
    That is not a good example of VC access since a) Andreessen quit Twitter a month ago and b) Andreessen is so infamous for blocking people on Twitter for having dissenting opinions that it was a meme. (http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/23/technology/marc-andreessen-block-twitter/ http://money.cnn.com/2015/12/23/technology/marc-andreessen-b...)
    - gregpilling 10y ago
      Fair enough. My exchange with him on twitter was minor and over a year ago. Other VCs are on twitter, as are people in their networks. I think that it is inauthentic to claim that there is no access to VC. You could reach them from the South Pole or anyplace that can get mobile data. The tough part is to stand out, not to get 5 seconds of time. in the video he says that they fund 20 out of 2000 warm introductions, and probably 20,000 cold ones. This challenge applies to all entrepreneurs though, those in San Jose and the South Pole. Only 20 will get chosen.
lpolovets 10y ago
I think it depends on the recipient. For example, I'm a VC and I give ~0 weight to intros from people I don't know well. I get a lot of emails like: "Hey, remember how we met once at a demo day in 2014? Well my friend is raising for her company... do you want to talk to her? The pitch deck is attached." When I read that, I decide what to do based on the pitch deck, not the intro from someone I don't know. If someone cold emailed me with the same deck, I think I'd make the same decision.
downandout 10y ago
It's rather ironic that many of the most famous people in the VC industry actually publish their email addresses [1], and then those same people will refuse any deal that comes to them this way. It's almost as if these addresses are there to perpetuate the myth that Silicon Valley is open to all comers as long as they've made something great, when the reality is that it's only open to a tiny sliver of entrepreneurs with great networking skills and/or those that are Stanford students/alumni. [1] example: http://www.greylock.com/team/#reid-hoffman http://www.greylock.com/team/#reid-hoffman
vonnik 10y ago
Another way of thinking about the warm-intro suggestion is that most investors are overwhelmed with pitches and need a basic filter. Other expert humans are still the best filter they have. Which is kind of too bad, because all of those humans also face the same constraints on their time, network and expertise. While it may be far-fetched, it's interesting to think about how we might create a more automatic filter for startups that would surface those both of interest to the VC and with some chance of success, relying on self-reported data in Crunchbase and Angel List, biographical data about the founding team and its network, and maybe press and analyst reports about an industry.
graycat 10y ago
I tried to get interest in Silicon Valley for my project. I'm in NYS US. I tried a lot of advice on how to contact VCs. All my efforts were a huge waste of time. So, I got a lot of advice, about introductions, how to write a pitch deck, and more. As far as I can tell, all of that advice was nonsense and, for me, a big waste of time. Sure, I could get an introduction from one of my Ph.D. dissertation advisers, past president of one of the world's best research universities with one of the most famous computer science departments. But I doubt that many or any VCs know this guy personally and in that case I would have insulted my former dissertation adviser, the VC, and myself -- no thanks. Once I did get a warm introduction from the CIO of one of the world's most famous companies, very successful, and famous for a lot of use of technology. As far as I could tell, the warm introduction was, for the VC, just a throwaway. A waste for the CIO, the VC, and me. Bummer. Really, an introduction is the VC having others do part of the VCs work, and this should not be justified: E.g., some of the standard advice is to write a very short, general pitch deck, with only a few foils and only a few words per foil, with the only purpose being to get the VC interested enough to ask for more information. Well, if this is the purpose of the first contact, no way should I bother the president of a high end university or the CIO of a top company; instead, the VC can just glance at a few foils and words in a PDF file, type "Sounds good. I'm interested. Please send more." and hit Reply. To be more clear on what VCs are not responding to, my project is to get the world's best solution, much better than anything else, for a problem that is pressing for nearly all users of the Internet, in the US and around the world. So, some back of the envelope arithmetic is 5 ads per Web page 10 pages per usage $2 per 1000 ads displayed 2 * 10**9 usages per week 52 weeks a year 5 * 10 * 2 * 2 * 10**9 * 52 / 1000 = 10,400,000,000 dollars of revenue per year. Status: Production quality software -- from carefully designed, highly scalable software and server farm architecture -- written and running with no known problems, currently in alpha test. All that information above has been essentially ignored by essentially every well known VC firm in Silicon Valley. So, if that doesn't work, what does? Well, about all that is left is what is still promising but nearly never in the advice. So, here is what is left: Go ahead with the business. Go live. Get publicity, users, and revenue. Have significant traction growing rapidly. Wait for the VCs to contact you. Of course, I'm a solo founder, CEO, CTO, CIO, Software VP, all of the development team, Server Farm and Network VP, ..., janitor. So, by the time my company has traction significant and growing rapidly, if the project will work at all, then soon it should have plenty of revenue for rapid growth. If the growth happens, then there will be plenty of after tax earnings to make me financially successful. That is, the cost for me to run the server farm will fall quicly to less than 1% of revenue with 99+% of the revenue pre-tax earnings. One server from less than $1000 in parts should have the capacity to generate $200,000+ a month in revenue. For a solo founder, why then take equity funding? By the way, it's all safe for work, legal, ethical, squeaky clean, etc. Still, essentially no one on Sand Hill Road gives a sh_t. Okay: They have their ways of making money, and I have mine. Apparently we have nothing in common. Lesson: I no longer place much value on advice for how to contact VCs. Or, if they are at all interested, then they will contact you. If there is a mob of them on the front lawn waving stacks of $1000 dollar bills at you and screaming for you to take the money, then maybe open the door and otherwise call the police to have them run out of the neighborhood! That is, if you are a solo founder, then by the time they want you, you won't want them. So, what ARE the VCs looking for? How about young, naive founders, traction significant and growing rapidly, no earnings, five founders, all credit cards maxed out, each founder with a pregnant wife, and eager to sign any term sheet.

happytrails 10y ago

Side note, guy sounds out of breath...

Dowwie 10y ago

Would a YC member please create a youtube playlist for 2016?

hnarayanan 10y ago
Until then: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Startup+School+SV+2016%22 https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=%22Startup+Scho... :)
craigcannon 10y ago
Sure thing - https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5NUadFuTNjcpHsWUVBueHSh https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLQ-uHSnFig5NUadFuTNjc... More videos coming :)

csinguva 10y ago

His comments where awesome about ML. Must watch

graycat 10y ago

I watched Marc's interview at https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NEOR0AJsziE https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=NEOR... Here are my reactions: As a preliminary note, Silicon Valley, Marc, and the entrepreneurs are all looking for things that are exceptionally good. Then: "Professional CEO". What Marc describes is an SVP Marketing or at best a COO. Marc lists as the tasks of a CEO as marketing, sales, finance, recruiting, etc. Nope: For each of those there is a VP, SVP, etc. Over them all is maybe a COO. The CEO is none of those things. Sorry, Marc. The problem with his professional CEO as the actual CEO instead of the founder is that the pro CEO doesn't have a good understanding of the vision for the future of the industry or the company and is not able to evaluate technical projects within the company or evaluate and hire technical people or leaders. So, the pro CEO is basically and at best one trying to SELL, SELL, SELL the EXISTING product/service. So, right rush out and sell 300 bps dial up modems, and keep growing to 9600 bps but forget about coaxial cable modems, wireless, and fiber. Marc wants the CEO to be a cracker jack buggy whip salesman, buggy whip production manager, buggy whip sales channel expert, etc. when Henry Ford is bringing out the Model T. Bummer. Marc mentions Tom Watson, Jr. who one day, when IBM was still with punched cards and electro mechanical equipment, mentioned to his father (IIRC): "There's a guy at Columbia. I don't know what he's doing, but he's doing it 200,000 times a second." Well, Tom, Jr. should have been much farther ahead on that theme. Being behind that way is part of why IBM had to play desperate catchup with System 360 and still missed out on a lot that Burroughs, DEC, etc. had. And soon IBM was just blind to what was in Multics, DEC VAX, the future of x86, etc. IBM VM? First done at IBM Cambridge Research Center as CP67/CMS just as a means of time-sharing operating system development. The real power of VM was missed for a long time. IBM was awash in people ready, willing, able, and eager to do great things for IBM in operating systems, system security, file systems, programming languages, etc. -- at one time one such person lamented "Three times in my career I tried to help IBM in operating systems, and three times I broke my pick trying.". Bummer. Marc has general partners "who have been through the struggle". Well, that's like having a lot of steam engine experts at the beginning of electric motors. In fact, the nature of "the struggle" is changing. To do well seeing what's new, Marc is looking in the wrong place. There are better places to look: E.g., in 1940, the US military was really smart and didn't plan the new weapons by talking to people who had "been through the struggle" in WWI with artillery, battleships, and biplanes. Instead, what was crucial was Reynold's number in fluid flow (the reason we got rid of biplanes), radar, radio, high resolution cameras, sonar, monoplanes, the proximity fuse, torpedoes, computers, super charged engines, aluminum in airplanes, encryption, code breaking, and the A-bomb. Nearly all of that was from people with more fundamental backgrounds than having been "through the struggle" of WWI. Marc needs people with more fundamental backgrounds. Marc talks about "the shit", just "all the stuff that happens". Well, in poorly planned and run projects, yes. But, J. Oppenheimer got the A-bomb ready on time, about as soon as Nimitz, MacArthur, and Boeing had Guam and the B-29 ready. A well planned and run project has a lot less "shit". Admiral Rickover did the same with the US nuclear submarines. The US Navy did the same with their version of GPS, some years before GPS. Similarly for Keyhole -- before the Hubble, essentially a Hubble but aimed at the earth. Lockheed did the same with the SR-71 -- Mach 3, 80,000 feet, 2000 mile range, never shot down. Etc. Marc has seen a lot of "shit" because he has seen a lot of poorly planned and run projects because he doesn't know where to look for good projects. Marc mentioned that his firm has a big "matrix" that helps a new CEO with selling, buying, funding, recruiting, etc. Okay. At times that might help. But, take recruiting: The whole goal of a VC funded company is to be exceptional. Well, I question if Marc's firm is able to select the needed exceptional people, and later in the interview there is good evidence that he can't. I have to move on. But, in short, to me, the worst thing Marc said was on how a CEO should evaluate VCs and engineers: Marc's main technique was recommendations. Wrong. Badly wrong. Here Marc is asking the CEO of hopefully a very exceptional company to draw from the knowledge of the general environment instead of using his own exceptionally good abilities, which necessarily we hope he has, to make much better, exceptionally good, decisions himself. Similarly Marc is impressed by computer science, AI, and ML. Nope. For the needed exceptional companies in information technology, f'get about computer science: Instead look more broadly in the QA section of the library, especially at selected topics in pure and applied math. There will see AI/ML as mostly special cases of statistics which is a special case of applied math which is a special case of pure math. Better to look at pure/applied math and mathematical statistics.

4714 10y ago

What are the best tools for building and maintaining your network? Facebook?