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How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

startupclass.samaltman.com

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Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#131

Post by tuxguy »

wj wrote: post #40

Another great resource from Stanford on startups is their Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series. http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html Talks have been given by some of the same people (including Marc Andreessen, Aaron Levie, Reid Hoffman, and Marissa Mayer) and many others. This talk on negotiation is one of the best lectures I've ever heard and I've recommended it to people dozens of times: http://ecorn…

Thanks Will for reminding me about ecorner!

I had an opportunity to attend Guy Kawasaki's talk, in person back in 2011 & it was very informative & fun ! http://ecorner.stanford.edu/authorMaterialInfo.html?mid=2669

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#132

Post by jseliger »

wj wrote: post #40

Another great resource from Stanford on startups is their Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders lecture series. http://ecorner.stanford.edu/podcasts.html Talks have been given by some of the same people (including Marc Andreessen, Aaron Levie, Reid Hoffman, and Marissa Mayer) and many others. This talk on negotiation is one of the best lectures I've ever heard and I've recommended it to people dozens of times: http://ecorn…

This talk on negotiation is one of the best lectures I've ever heard and I've recommended it to people dozens of times:

Has someone written a transcript?

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#133

Post by nostrademons »

michaelochurch wrote: post #118
mindcrime wrote: post #97

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't see it... if anything this should have the opposite effect. It's making that more more great information and know-how available to absolutely anyone, anywhere in the world, for free. OK, to be fair, anyone with a computer and a 'net connection, which does leave out some people... but still, it's a lot better than having a corresponding class at Stanford, which is available only to paying Stanford students, an…

And our startups will succeed or fail quite independently of what Peter Thiel, Paul Graham, Sam Altman, Marc Andressen, Ron Conway, et al., think. Even if that's true, it's beside the point. You still care what the VCs think of you, independent of their effect on the success or failure of your business. If it succeeds, you need to be sure that the board keeps you in place. What use is it to build a successful busines…

For someone so cognizant of how status games work, your comment betrays such an assumption of helplessness and low status in your own beliefs.

If you want to avoid being removed from your own startup, don't seek VC until you have enough negotiating leverage that you can keep a majority of board seats. It's that simple.

If your startup fails, there will be a large number of other startups, giant tech companies, etc. that are willing to hire you, as long as you demonstrate you learned something. It happened to me after my first startup, it happened to you, it's just you squandered the opportunity to recover your savings and repair your reputation within Google.

If the VCs are putting personal pressure on you to make the wrong decisions and they don't have a board majority, then listen carefully to them, and if they're still wrong on reflection, gently explain to them what the right decision is, why it is so, and then say that you appreciate their advice but will make the right decision regardless. If they do have a board majority, then listen carefully to them, understand what they're saying, point out whatever information they're missing when they gave you that advice, and ask if they would still like you to make that decision, or would they prefer that you go make this other decision that incorporates all the information that both of you have?

VCs - and anyone else - do not have any power over you other than what you give them. If working with them means making untenable concessions, don't work with them.

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#134

Post by rwallace »

reduce wrote: post #89
sama wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

it's online! don't be jealous; watch the talks.

Unfortunately, there's a huge difference in the psychological impact of seeing role models in-person, versus only on a screen. I've experienced this many times while living outside of the US, in recent years. All of the people you'll read about in blogs, or see in videos -- they're perceived like movie stars or legends that must have been greatly distorted on their journey to the opposite end of the world. Keep in mi…

If you're going to take the attitude that nothing except physical proximity to a handful of high-status individuals will suffice, then you've defined terms under which almost everyone has to lose, no matter what happens. Then the dynamics of zero-sum games inevitably cause the value that would have been accrued by the handful of winners to be destroyed in fighting over who gets to be in that handful.

I say bugger that for a game of soldiers. No, you don't have to meet one of the 'legends' before you can succeed. That sort of thinking is false, poisonous and destructive. In almost all cases, the first step on the road to success is understanding that life is not a zero-sum game.

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#135

Post by rwallace »

mjwhansen wrote: post #122
Nicholas_C wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're forgetting the absolutely incredible intangible value and legitimacy of having Stanford on your resume.

It's not the Stanford (or Harvard, or USC, or Ohio State) education that really matters -- it's the people you meet. Going to a school that's a nexus for your industry puts you around people who are driven and knowledgeable about similar topics and is what leads to professional growth and opportunities. (This is something that online education misses entirely and will largely never be able to replicate.)

Granted that watching instructional videos online doesn't (at least in and of itself) accomplish the goal of meeting driven and knowledgeable peers, but if that's the real goal, then let's focus on it, because there are ways to achieve it that are orders of magnitude more efficient (in both money and life) than trying to get into Stanford.

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#136

Post by mqsiuser »

staunch wrote: post #64
startupfounder wrote: post #5

This is an amazing recruiting tool for YC and is a page out of JOEL SPOLSKY's book: "So if the top 1 percent never apply for jobs (aka get startup funding), how can you recruit them? My theory is that the best way is to find them before they realize there is a job market (aka startup funding)--back when they're still in college."[0] [0] http://www.inc.com/magazine/20070501/column-guest.html

In 2006 YC ran this ad in The Stanford Daily. I always thought it was funny. http://i.imgur.com/HuQxIXT.jpg

Sergey and Larry actually "just got a job" after graduation: Researchers at a university pursuing a phd. They used THIS JOB to develop the technology for their (later) company. Then they FIRST tried to SELL the (search-)algorithm and when they didn't find someone (to pay a couple of millions) they started Google. AND... Larry is/was the driving master mind taking Sergey (and a lot of others) with him to success. Well... it's an add.

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#137

Post by angersock »

Nicholas_C wrote: post #130
angersock wrote: post #125

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It could, but you know what makes even more of a difference--to the business? Having customers and recurring revenue. I know that funding is kind of like a nice additional checkbox on your list of upper-middle class elite treadmill objectives, but outside of sanfranistan we've somehow managed to build entire empires of real value without having to rely on venture capitalists who happened to get drunk in the same dorm…

>I know that funding is kind of like a nice additional checkbox on your list of upper-middle class elite treadmill objectives I work in the finance department for a large corporation, I'm not a start up guy. I don't even live in "Sanfranistan", or California. I'm really surprised at the negative reactions I'm getting by stating that what school you go to can give a leg up on being successful.

So, the assertion was "may make you more successful in funding"--you're moving the goalposts to "successful" after the fact.

Success and funding are not necessarily correlated, right? We saw that back in the 90s and are seeing it again.

I don't disagree that having these connections can ease certain parts of the fundraising (and even customer acquisition!) process--that said, I'm concerned that the emphasis placed a lot of times in the ecosystem is on funding and not the boring part of, you know, business.

My cynicism stems from the fact that, to me, the hip path these days has you going to an Ivy-league school or Stanford, starting a company, going through a well-known accelerator, raising funding from VCs, and then -~=magic startup time=~-. And for a lot of people, this path isn't about actually doing business--it's simply the thing that they're supposed to do and which it is implied is expected of them. All the while, spouting rhetoric about how they're going to "change the world" by chasing the same boring set of business concepts. I find it irritating.

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#138

Post by sillysaurus3 »

r0m4n0 wrote: post #127
sillysaurus3 wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Being able to raise funding is nice, but I could do that too, and I didn't attend Stanford. The only question that matters to investors is, "Will the next Google or Facebook come out of Stanford?" If the answer is "No," then everyone investing in Stanford-related startups will lose. There's a higher chance that the right talent, idea, and motivation might come together at Stanford, but it's far from likely. I don't k…

Google may not be the best example... the founders went to Standford as well haha. I think the question comes down to, does the school give the unfair advantage or does the school attract smart people that are more likely to accomplish something great. I think its already accepted that there is a correlation.

The fact that Facebook, Airbnb, and Dropbox came out of other places suggests there isn't anything inherently special about Stanford, except that there's a lot of talent there.

I think the question comes down to, does the school give the unfair advantage or does the school attract smart people that are more likely to accomplish something great. I think its already accepted that there is a correlation.

There's a correlation, but rich kids can also buy their way into schools like Stanford: http://www.paulgraham.com/hs.html

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It's dangerous to design your life around getting into college, because the people you have to impress to get into college are not a very discerning audience. At most colleges, it's not the professors who decide whether you get in, but admissions officers, and they are nowhere near as smart. They're the NCOs of the intellectual world. They can't tell how smart you are. The mere existence of prep schools is proof of that.

Few parents would pay so much for their kids to go to a school that didn't improve their admissions prospects. Prep schools openly say this is one of their aims. But what that means, if you stop to think about it, is that they can hack the admissions process: that they can take the very same kid and make him seem a more appealing candidate than he would if he went to the local public school. [6]

[6] I don't mean to imply that the only function of prep schools is to trick admissions officers. They also generally provide a better education. But try this thought experiment: suppose prep schools supplied the same superior education but had a tiny (.001) negative effect on college admissions. How many parents would still send their kids to them?

It might also be argued that kids who went to prep schools, because they've learned more, are better college candidates. But this seems empirically false. What you learn in even the best high school is rounding error compared to what you learn in college. Public school kids arrive at college with a slight disadvantage, but they start to pull ahead in the sophomore year.

(I'm not saying public school kids are smarter than preppies, just that they are within any given college. That follows necessarily if you agree prep schools improve kids' admissions prospects.)

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I'm going to go with "unfair advantage," but there are a lot of smart people there too.

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#139

Post by buro9 »

anseljh wrote: post #124
buro9 wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The effect is real and pronounced. One of the perceived privileges of the elite is their very access to opportunity, and being there is to provide that access. Not being there is to observe the access, which is the addition of transparency that never existed before, but fundamentally the access hasn't been granted. If you're already in a tough place without access to these kinds of opportunity, this is just going to…

Why the gnashing of teeth? Yes, privilege is real, but they had to pick some place to do it, and it's a hell of a lot better to have it online and for free than to not have it online and for free.

No gnashing of teeth, just a deep empathy (I was homeless/street-sleeping when young) with people who feel that they are (for whatever reason: geographical, socioeconomical, gender, racial, etc) lacking in privilege and locked out.

Re: How to Start a Startup: Fall 2014

#140

Post by eldarionski »

jeffchuber wrote: post #105
pptr1 wrote: post #72

Just finished reading Peter Thiel's Zero to One; and it is interesting that both him and Marissa Mayer are going to teach. He sort of disses her in the book. This is a quote from his book. "Beginning with brand rather than substance is dangerous. Ever since Marissa Mayer became CEO of Yahoo! in mid-2012, she has worked to revive the once-popular internet giant by making it cool again. In a single tweet, Yahoo! summar…

Is Yahoo really a products company or a content and advertising company?

Actually Yahoo is all of these.For example this IS pure http://vividads.com.au/ advertising company
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