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For my part, I think the partners are much more important than the idea. Good companies can pivot to find a good market. Bad partners will sink you, or never ge

For my part, I think the partners are much more important than the idea. Good companies can pivot to find a good market. Bad partners will sink you, or never get off the ground to begin with. Select for team, not for idea. The best idea is the one that can attract and motivate a great team, or one put forward by people you want to work with. FWIW, I recall Paul Graham writing something that explains how he screens YC applicants. The upshot is that he doesn't devote consideration the idea unless he's first intrigued by the team. Whether you're a spectacularly successful investor in many startups or the potential co-founder of just one, that's probably a good place to start.

john_moscow 9y ago
Except there's a great caveat with this approach. People that are highly productive and self-motivated often don't give a pleasant impression because they are fascinated with the idea and don't care for the looks. And vice versa, those who will look like a great friendly team, will be passionate about, well, looking great and friendly. They will spend time getting together, having endless pleasant talks about the latest news and their favorite TV show and couldn't be bothered to get out of the comfort zone and actually deliver something measurable.
- mitchellst 9y ago
  I think this is fine for excusing the social quirks of individual contributors. If you're talking co-founders, though, I'd consider this "caveat" a red flag. If a person can't bring himself to make a positive impression to other human beings because he's too enamored of the "idea and doesn't care for the looks," he probably doesn't have the requisite maturity to co-found a business that will employ people. Of course, some people really are all talk and no action. But I suspect you're assuming too strong a correlation with social skills. The fact is that there are plenty of brilliantly social people who can and do execute, and plenty of smart introverts who can't. I'm not saying, "go into business with your friends!" I'm saying go into business with people you trust and respect. The corollary is to become someone who is trusted and respected by people who don't share the same skills and biases you have. Good places to start: seriously consider whether "the looks" have merit, and practice carrying friendly conversations.
  - john_moscow 9y ago
    I agree with your point, that a certain level of social skills is a must, although in my experience, when people start competing over making the best impression, many choices that improve it would be disadvantageous when it comes to execution. The simplest example I could think of is typically being relaxed and simply agreeing with everything that your opponent says gives better surface impression than being focused on understanding your opponent and actually trying to defend your point (the classical salesperson vs engineer case). Except that approach would deadlock your execution, but nonetheless I see many people successfully using it to gain one's trust and get preferred over someone who pushed back too much.
- muzani 9y ago
  I disagree. I've met a lot of super productive, obsessed people. Many are very nice. Though like Ben Horowitz put it, you have your peace time people and your wartime people. The ones you're describing might be wartime people, obsessed with making a company survive. A company like Google would want more peace time people. They're still damn good engineers but not so stoic.

john_moscow 9y ago

Except there's a great caveat with this approach. People that are highly productive and self-motivated often don't give a pleasant impression because they are fascinated with the idea and don't care for the looks. And vice versa, those who will look like a great friendly team, will be passionate about, well, looking great and friendly. They will spend time getting together, having endless pleasant talks about the latest news and their favorite TV show and couldn't be bothered to get out of the comfort zone and actually deliver something measurable.

mitchellst 9y ago
I think this is fine for excusing the social quirks of individual contributors. If you're talking co-founders, though, I'd consider this "caveat" a red flag. If a person can't bring himself to make a positive impression to other human beings because he's too enamored of the "idea and doesn't care for the looks," he probably doesn't have the requisite maturity to co-found a business that will employ people. Of course, some people really are all talk and no action. But I suspect you're assuming too strong a correlation with social skills. The fact is that there are plenty of brilliantly social people who can and do execute, and plenty of smart introverts who can't. I'm not saying, "go into business with your friends!" I'm saying go into business with people you trust and respect. The corollary is to become someone who is trusted and respected by people who don't share the same skills and biases you have. Good places to start: seriously consider whether "the looks" have merit, and practice carrying friendly conversations.
- john_moscow 9y ago
  I agree with your point, that a certain level of social skills is a must, although in my experience, when people start competing over making the best impression, many choices that improve it would be disadvantageous when it comes to execution. The simplest example I could think of is typically being relaxed and simply agreeing with everything that your opponent says gives better surface impression than being focused on understanding your opponent and actually trying to defend your point (the classical salesperson vs engineer case). Except that approach would deadlock your execution, but nonetheless I see many people successfully using it to gain one's trust and get preferred over someone who pushed back too much.
muzani 9y ago
I disagree. I've met a lot of super productive, obsessed people. Many are very nice. Though like Ben Horowitz put it, you have your peace time people and your wartime people. The ones you're describing might be wartime people, obsessed with making a company survive. A company like Google would want more peace time people. They're still damn good engineers but not so stoic.