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Advice given to me during my first startup by a very successful entrepreneur: To succeed, you have to be able to kill a puppy. Don't just think "yeah, I can kil
by smoody 18y ago
Advice given to me during my first startup by a very successful entrepreneur: To succeed, you have to be able to kill a puppy. Don't just think "yeah, I can kill a puppy," but imagine yourself holding a puppy underwater until it stops breathing.
The person dispensing this advice was not talking literally, of course. Starting companies that last until they succeed often means making tough decisions. The kinds of decisions that impact people's well being and future -- and not always in a positive way in the short term. It often means saying "No!" more than saying "Yes."
I was never able to imagine myself killing a puppy, but even going through that process and realizing that I couldn't do it taught me something about who I am and the kind of leader I wanted to be, which was the real purpose of the exercise.
- bigboote 18y agoWise advice. Some of the things you have to do to succeed -- firing dud employees, saying no to early acquisition offers, telling girlfriends that work is more important than them -- are at least as hard as drowning a puppy. Maybe the next round of YC interviews should have a qualifying event requiring a big tub of water and a trip to the humane society.
- staunch 18y agoA better example might be shooting a terminally wounded horse or something. Killing a puppy for no reason is just messed up and drowning it is really messed up.
- LPTS 18y agoIf you are going to kill a puppy for no good reason, drowning is a relatively humane way to do it. Once you're at the killing a puppy for fun stage in your decisionmaking, most of the fucked up has already happened. Drowning doesn't make it more fucked up. It's not like someone is gonna say "you killed that puppy for no reason. But you really crossed the line with drowning." I can think of many cases where drowning would be a preferable alternative to other modalities of needless puppy murder.
- DaniFong 18y agoDude, I do not see Larry and Sergey doing this. Don't be evil, right?
- LPTS 18y agoDude Larry and Sergey can totally hire psychopaths to deal with the business end. They don't have to drown puppies themselves. They have a whole hr department to profiling and recruiting the best puppy murders. That way, the google gods can not be evil, and the puppies still get killed.