Pmarca Archive

Reminded me of http://theamericanscholar.org/the-disadvantages-of-an-elite-education/ - “So are you saying that we’re all just, like, really excellent sheep?”

Also, Marc Andreeson's take on a similar stereotype, The Organization Kid - http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-career-planning-part-2-sk

In the younger generations it may seem there is nothing worse than entitlement, but after many years of observing, I think it is a worse affliction to be both super and an extreme conformist. I'm talking about the funneling of premium intellectual capital into existing institutions like investment, legal, management consulting, medicine, academia (in some cases) often through mechanisms like the Ivy's, but also through parental mechanisms (pressure, nepotism, etc) and various social institutions.

When ego-based considerations like reputation, status and compensation lure young minds, these minds have lost forever the ability to question everything - to abstract their understanding of the world beyond what social influences and short-term goals will allow. Stifling openness, creativity and non-conformity in formative years gives a person the ability to achieve a definition of success in our world. However, it closes the door to changing the world itself - and this is the real job of the super-capable.

Question everything. Take your own path. The world needs the super to constantly re-invent itself for the greater good, not for you to show the world that…

- They raised a $4M round led by USV in 2010 (http://avc.com/a_vc/2011/03/the-hashable-pivot.html)

- The founder (http://linkedin.com/pub/michael-yavonditte/3a/919/3b6) was previously the CEO of an ad company that AOL acquired for $340M, and he's also an angel investor and partner at a VC fund -- so, he's obviously an experienced entrepreneur and has an amazing network to support him

Best of luck to everyone on the team and all in their future endeavors, but I think this just tells you how hard startups really are, esp during these crazy times.

It's a constant reminder that having all the money and connections in the world doesn't mean shit about whether you're actually going to build a strong business and end up dominating your market. Obviously, having a nice war chest and good connections will help you execute, but it's only a means to an end and still kind of superficial, and not what makes startups fundamentally succeed. Drop.io was another case in point, the founder was extremely well-connected in the tech scene and in VC circles, yet they failed and got owned by Dropbox - only thing that matters in the long-run is talent and hardcore execution.

Also highlights just how important timing/luck and product-market fit are: http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-startups-part-4-the-only

"Markets that don't exist don't care how smart you are."

"If you want to get a bootstrapped startup off the ground...somewhere in the early days...you'll have to break #1."

This is baloney and has a higher chance of making great cofounders and hackers (like, for example, Marc Andreessen: http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/how-to-hire-the-best-people-youve-ever-worked) run for the hills rather than work with you. If investors or business partners catch you seriously lying once you are basically permanently blacklisted. You might be able to eke out some kind of business from that black hole, but it is not easy.

"Third and final criterion: ethics.

Ethics are hard to test for.

But watch for any whiff of less than stellar ethics in any candidate's background or references.

And avoid, avoid, avoid." - pmarca

Marc Andreesson wrote (about hiring suits, not engineers): "if you know what you're doing, the odds of a given executive hire working out will be about 50/50. That is, about 50% of the time you'll screw up and ultimately have to replace the person. (If you don't know what you're doing, your failure rate will be closer to 100%.)" http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-pmarca-guide-to-startups-part-8-hiring-ma

From my own experience, the best team I ever worked on was one where we had a rigorous interview process... and fired 2 of the first 6 engineers, i.e., one third.

> Because I find a lot of entrepreneurs often will come now looking for capital or some sort of involvement in a start-up dynamic, and you feel that in the dialogue they’re afraid of talking about their own failure. And I’ll say, "Hang on. It’s okay to talk about it." It’s actually much more credible if you talk about the lessons you glean from it.

No one likes to hear someone brag just about their success.

See:
"The Psychology of Entrepreneurial Misjudgment, part 1: Biases 1-6"

http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/the-psychology-of-entrepreneurial-misjudgment

I believe that tenacity leads to luck, simply through more tries:

Chance II springs from your energetic, generalized motor activities... the freer they are, the better.

[Chance II] involves the kind of luck [Charles] Kettering... had in mind when he said, "Keep on going and chances are you will stumble on something, perhaps when you are least expecting it. I have never heard of anyone stumbling on something sitting down."

http://pmarca-archive.posterous.com/luck-and-the-entrepreneur-part-1-the-four-kin