20VC Newsletter - Mar 24th 2024
Here are the transcripts and top takeaways from 20VC episodes released this last week!
Monday’s episode with Gili Raanan, Founder of Cyberstarts and former GP at Sequoia Capital:
Download the full transcript here:
Here are my top 8 takeaways:
What is the Sign of the Single Best Entrepreneur
They’ve all gone through real life difficulties.
Ugly divorce, social isolation, living in the closet.
The best founders went through these difficulties and still became successful.
Why Laziness is a Wonderful Trait
It makes you think about efficiency.
You focus on what you’re really good at and enjoy doing.
Forming a venture team is all about filling the gaps.
You Do Not Have to be a Domain Expert to Build Amazing Companies
Wiz’s team started off trying to secure Microsoft applications.
We realized the real pain point was in cloud security and pivoted.
It is now a $10BN business.
You don’t have to be an expert to truly innovate in a field.
Why Everything but the Founder is Total BS
Everything about tech and markets could change in 8 weeks.
I focus all my time on the most stable element in venture: The team.
I don’t expect young entrepreneurs to come up with amazing market analysis.
It’s setting the bar way too high.
Why The Best Seed Investors Do Not Have Theses
I always meet a new team completely unprepared.
I don’t want to poison my mind with what they can build or go after.
It’s a different profession and mindset.
Why I Lost Faith in Product Marketing
Early stage companies don’t have enough opportunities and pipeline once they start selling software.
I used to think product marketing should be the first marketing hire.
Now it’s demand generation.
It will make a huge impact on the business early.
The Secret to Success in VC
Focus and repeat on things that do work.
There are so many fucked up things that do not work well in venture.
Rinse and repeat, and you’ll be super successful.
The Sequoia Brand and What Makes Them Successful
Venture is a service provider business.
Sequoia has the biggest brand in venture and it creates an amazing cycle.
All the great founders, execs, and investors will automatically come to you.
When I worked for Sequoia, you could feel the brand, tradition, and quality.
Wednesday’s episode with Jean-Michel Lemieux, former CTO at Shopify and VP of Engineering at Atlassian.
Download the full transcript here:
Here are my top 5 takeaways:
Build Movements not Products
Atlassian built a movement around open source & easy software.
Shopify built a movement around entrepreneurship.
They invested in eyeballs & marketing and it paid off.
How Shopify & Atlassian Operate Differently
Shopify ships on quality, Atlassian ships on speed.
Shopify would do less things and focus on quality.
Atlassian spends more time acquiring products and monetizing it fast.
Three Types of Decisions Every Team Makes
Root: Important, one-way decisions.
Trunk: Medium-sized decisions.
Leaf: Unimportant decisions.
Communicate these to your team so they know which to run past you.
Why Most Companies Slow Down
Time horizon friction: There are too many processes put in place.
Planning process, roadmaps, briefs…
You end up in more meetings about future work than doing the work itself.
Biggest Hiring Mistakes Founders Make When Hiring Product
They hire too quickly.
As a result, they don’t know the capacity of their team on paper.
I always wait until things break a couple of times before adding people.
Friday’s episode with Bryan Johnson, founder of Braintree, Kernel, OS Fund and Blueprint.
Download the full transcript here:
Here are my top 8 takeaways:
We Are Not Capable of Managing Our Own Affairs
The human race is not qualified to manage our affairs.
We make bad decisions that lessen our lives.
Only an inferior type of intelligence would inflict harm upon itself.
Three Questions to Test New Ideas
What must be true for this to be true?
What must remain true for this to be true?
What would change to make this untrue?
I’m moving horizontally through time and space to pressure test the idea.
I Care About Being Liked by the 25th Century
I can explore ideas that people from the 25th century might respect.
I am no longer limited to the approval of my peers.
This has been the most liberating thought experiment in my life.
Why You Must Be Skeptical of Everything
We know immediate things with high certainty & long-term things with reasonable certainty.
But the middle is all fog we’re trying to navigate through.
We need clarity of thought to find the ultimate truth.
How to Work with New Ideas
They’re not something you simply accept or reject.
Excavate new ideas, fill it out as broadly as possible.
You may be on the tip of an iceberg.
We have the Source Code for Life
Humans can now reliably engineer atoms and molecules.
We have computational tools that exceed our native intelligence and abilities.
We can’t achieve immortality yet, but we have everything necessary to figure it out.
An Algorithm Runs My Body
I made an algorithm that takes care of me better than myself.
Everything including diets, workouts, sleep schedules…
It’s an agreement I made with myself and I cannot deviate from it.
How to Get Good Sleep
Reframe your identity: You are now a professional sleeper.
Set your bedtime like you set your office meetings.
If you’re late by 2 minutes, you apologize.
Let us know what your big takeaways from this week’s shows were in the comments below!
Thank you for reading, and don’t miss the great guests we have next week: Founder of a16z crypto Chris Dixon, Vencap CIO David Clark and Tradeweb CEO Billy Hult.
https://linktr.ee/20vc