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Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

foundersatwork.com

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Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#41

Post by philwelch »

ghshephard wrote: post #35
[deleted] wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[deleted]

The point I was trying to make is that they take other people's work, and present it to the world in a different form. Compare 'Founders', to something like Walter Isaacson "Jobs" - both of them had lots of interviews, with transcribing, and edits - but I got a lot more out of 'Founders' (as did everyone I know) than Issacon's book. Issacson supposedly had 100% access with his relationship to Steve Jobs, but I don't…

My reading is that Isaacson cared more about Steve Jobs as a human being than as a living case study for entrepreneurs and wantrepreneurs. Steve Jobs commissioned the biography so his kids would have a better idea of who he was as a human being, not so you and I could learn his secrets for building a startup and being a CEO. (That project was internal to Apple: http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/06/business/la-fi-apple...)

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#42

Post by saraid216 »

diego wrote: post #30
Geekette wrote: post #27

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Let's be serious here - Founders at Work was a list of wonderful interviews with startup founders and its creation was tied directly to her personal relationship with pg. Sigh To all downvoters - indicate why this is a) demonstrably wrong or b) demonstrably unfair. It is both true and verifiable - don't just downvote me because this disagrees with your world view." It is ridiculously rude because it implies that she…

I don't think he implies that. Those two things are not contradictory. She could be an outstanding professional AND be there because of her connection. There is nothing wrong with that. It happens all the time, everywhere.

He does. Her personal connection is not relevant unless her professional one depends on it. To point it out as a relevant piece of information implies that the dependency exists.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#43

Post by abbasmehdi »

cs702 wrote: post #22

This is excellent -- and very much in the spirit of Charlie Munger's often-repeated saying: "All I want to know is where I'm going to die, so I'll never go there."[1] -- [1] http://www.pbs.org/wsw/news/fortunearticle_20031026_03.html

Death is inevitable, these mistakes aren't.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#44

Post by msrpotus »

001sky wrote: post #40
AVTizzle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about "luck" in a presentation like this is like talking about the life benefits of physical attractiveness. Precious little of it is in your control, so what's the point? Address what you can control, and hope for the best.

This is an interesting point, at least the initial first premise. The conclusion seems off though. In order to leverage your own assets, you need to be able to size up not only your own strengths and weakenesses, but also those of others. PA, like social status, and others of the same ilk is a real (if not always 'earned' asset). As such, you should never ignore it or be oblivious too it. It falls in a spectrum of in…

There is one big difference between luck and attractiveness, though. Luck is a big unknown except in hindsight. If you knew you were going to be unlucky, there's very little you could do (I hesitate to say nothing but I can't think of anything).

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#45

Post by philwelch »

chrischen wrote: post #37
AVTizzle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about "luck" in a presentation like this is like talking about the life benefits of physical attractiveness. Precious little of it is in your control, so what's the point? Address what you can control, and hope for the best.

Actually you control luck with determination. By increasing determination, you decrease the effect luck has on anything you do.

And for that matter, you can control physical attractiveness. There's always something you could do if you really had to, right? Lose a little weight, gain a little weight, hide your flaws, accentuate your good points, dress a certain way. You know how sometimes on tabloid covers in the supermarket they have pictures of celebrities wearing sweats and no makeup? It's a petty thing to fixate on, but it illustrates a valuable point.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#47

Post by biscarch »

chrischen wrote: post #37
AVTizzle wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Talking about "luck" in a presentation like this is like talking about the life benefits of physical attractiveness. Precious little of it is in your control, so what's the point? Address what you can control, and hope for the best.

Actually you control luck with determination. By increasing determination, you decrease the effect luck has on anything you do.

Agreed, but I would put it slightly differently.

Every goal has a percentage likelihood of success, your job (as the goal-reacher) is to increase the likelihood of desired outcomes.

Ex: Moving to SF increases your luck-factor/success-percentage of meeting a VC at a coffee shop. (Assuming there are a lot of VCs at coffee shops in SF) Therefore you have become more "lucky". You have probably also reduced your luck-factor for seeing a cow in the morning.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#48

Post by jarek »

msrpotus wrote: post #44
001sky wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is an interesting point, at least the initial first premise. The conclusion seems off though. In order to leverage your own assets, you need to be able to size up not only your own strengths and weakenesses, but also those of others. PA, like social status, and others of the same ilk is a real (if not always 'earned' asset). As such, you should never ignore it or be oblivious too it. It falls in a spectrum of in…

There is one big difference between luck and attractiveness, though. Luck is a big unknown except in hindsight. If you knew you were going to be unlucky, there's very little you could do (I hesitate to say nothing but I can't think of anything).

> If you knew you were going to be unlucky, there's very little you could do

I believe the startupland term is "pivot."

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#49

Post by btilly »

LiveTheDream wrote: post #13

Are people really having such trouble with the context of this article? The author's name is in the headline (maybe it was modded in later, to be fair), but also there's an "author" link[0] in plain sight. PG's essay's don't have a "who am I" introduction, and if you didn't know who he was then you'd simply click on the obvious "bio" link. [0] http://www.foundersatwork.com/author.html

At the point where I replied, the name was NOT in the headline. It was definitely modded in later.

Re: Jessica Livingston: What Goes Wrong

#50

Post by pg »

johnsang wrote: post #20
pg wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think so. Within YC Jessica's nickname is The Social Radar. One nickname at least; the other is Panic.

PG, mind sharing some insight on the "Panic" nickname? I'm curious about how/if the two are related.

We call her Panic because she's the office worrier. I never considered her two sides might be related. Interesting idea, but I don't think so.
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