The Mentor Manifesto

http://www.davidgcohen.com/2011/08/28/the-mentor-manifesto/

by dshah • 15 years ago

51 10 15 years ago

hollerith• 15 years ago

>I’ve been running TechStars for six years now. . . . we’ve seen those companies go on to raise about $100M in funding (averaging about $1M each post TechStars)

I would have been more interested to read about valuations than about amounts raised.

chrismanfrank• 15 years ago

me too. but it's possible a lot of these startups raised with convertible notes, and so would not have valuations yet.

matusz13• 15 years ago

while they haven't gone through the trouble of posting valuations (I agree, it would be nice to see) they do have a results page http://www.techstars.org/results/

champion• 15 years ago

TechStars gathers some info on their results to date: http://www.techstars.org/results/

riffraff• 15 years ago

for a moment I've been wondering why "The Conscience of a Hacker"[0] had become popular again.

[0] http://www.phrack.org/issues.html?issue=7&id=3&mode=...

olalonde• 15 years ago

I was thinking exactly the same. For those who haven't heard of it before: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hacker_Manifesto

cek2• 15 years ago

   Be socratic.
   Listen too.

In my mind these two are basically the same and I'd summarize them as "Use the 70/30 rule. Listen 70% of the time and talk only 30%".

   Expect nothing in return (you’ll be delighted with what you do get back).

To me this is what differentiates great mentors from others more than anything.

nl• 15 years ago

Be socratic

This specifically refers to the idea of questioning in order to find the underlying truth: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socratic_method

That is different to just listening, or even the 70/30 rule. Being Socratic means actively questioning the assumptions and model of the mentee, rather than trying to build on their assumptions with your ideas.

cek2• 15 years ago

I totally understand that. I was implying that to be Socratic you need to listen a lot more than you talk. Ask a question and then listen.

jseliger• 15 years ago

I'd add a "mentee manifesto" too, since mentorship is a proverbial two-way street. I actually wrote an essay on that topic from an education perspective: "How to get your Professors’ Attention — along with Coaching or Mentoring" (http://jseliger.com/2010/10/02/how-to-get-your-professors%E2...) because I noticed that some students systematically make mistakes they may not be aware of when it comes to seeking mentors or advice.

The Mentor Manifesto

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