Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
hardfork.substack.com
Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
1–10 of 46 posts
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#2If they took good advice, they wouldn’t be founders :/
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#3I guess they don't take good advice because the advice isn't good? The author doesn't give any reasons to think otherwise.
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#4It could be "Why Most People Don’t Take Good Advice"
The 3 reasons listed apply to a lot of people.
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#5"Hire slow, fire fast" is a great example of valleyspeak that may seem horrible to someone who doesn't already know it is.
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#6Title should be "Why Founders Don't Listen to Me."
Answer is deflection: founders just aren't as smart as the author.
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#7And don't forget that founders are bombarded with what is proclaimed to be "good advice", including "Don't try, get a stable job instead" and a ton of directly conflicting advice.
It quickly becomes incredibly hard to discern what is actually good advice for your situation to what is bad advice with good intentions, especially without the lived experience.
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#8I think the whole article can be summed up with this:
> This is no different than when growing up and you used to ignore your parents advice because you think you know better
To learn some things you have to experience them, often multiple times. That's why making mistakes is the most valuable part of any experience.
I have made a tonne of mistakes so far, a lot of them because I was disillusioned at the time -- but disillusionment is a double-edged sword -- it can be the catalyst a lot of people need when starting a company.
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#9People who give a great advice can back it up by data, logical explanation, operational experience and are aware of their limitations.
People who give bad advice are people who repeat the people above, but without relevant background.
It is not about the audience, it is about the messenger.
Re: Why Most Founders Don’t Take Good Advice
#10Good advice is only actionable when it's also timely. "Hire slow and fire fast", for example, is not helpful advice for a founder who's still trying to get seed funding -- hiring is a problem they want to have. So the advice is good but they're not likely to remember it.
You can't expect someone to squirrel away every bit of good advice, just waiting for a time when it's useful.
I mean, there are plenty of times when I've slapped my head and said, "Oh, that's what they were talking about"... but mostly they told me when I didn't have the problem, and then I remembered too late :-\
Also, this pissed me off:
> But due to the depth of knowledge and experience here in Silicon Valley, there are many high quality people who do give great advice
I may live in Lower Fartville, but... really?