How to Start a Startup – Lecture 14: How to Operate

http://startupclass.samaltman.com/courses/lec14/

by kqr2 • 12 years ago

127 33 12 years ago

startupclass.samaltman.com

wslh3• 12 years ago

I don't know if the last page of the presentation is inspiring... Nowadays, I imagine the CEOs of successful companies more relaxed than the people below them.

edmack2• 12 years ago

quite the opposite..!

wslh3• 12 years ago

We don't have real data about this to compare but I imagine that if your company is doing well you can make it work without stress. That's why you have thousands of employees and billions of dollars to spend. I don't think you are a good CEO if you can't see the stuff at a higher level and not rest well.

spoiledtechie• 12 years ago

Are these lectures actually any good? I really don't want to watch them if they aren't any good.

Are there lessons to be learned?

[link]https://www.facebook.com/pages/Hacker-News/1558365107716690

betadreamer• 12 years ago

I enjoyed it. It's basically about how to be a good manager. quizotic summarized some good points. A good tldr.

Udo2• 12 years ago

In this series there have been a lot of lectures that really resonated with me, while others didn't for various reasons. I don't think you can find out without at least partially watching them.

quizotic• 12 years ago

+1 Track complementary KPIs, so as you go up on one, you don't go down too far on the other

+1 Grade/compensate based on ratio of output divided by resources, so that managers don't have incentive to create empires.

+1 Calendar audit vs stated priorities

+1 Company must have one voice and a simple message

edmack2• 12 years ago

really good practical advice! Thank you KR!

lukasm2• 12 years ago

The second counterintuitive point, this might come as a little bit of a disappointment, but what you need to succeed in a startup is not expertise in startups. That makes this class different from most other classes you take. You take a French class, at the end of it you've learned how to speech French. You do the work, you may not sound exactly like a French person, but pretty close, right? This class can teach you about startups, but that is not what you need to know. What you need to know to succeed in a startup is not expertise in startups, what you need is expertise in your own users.

Mark Zuckerberg did not succeed at Facebook because he was an expert in startups, he succeeded despite being a complete noob at startups; I mean Facebook was first incorporated as a Florida LLC. Even you guys know better than that. He succeeded despite being a complete noob at startups because he understood his users very well. Most of you don't know the mechanics of raising an angel round, right? If you feel bad about that, don't, because I can tell you Mark Zuckerberg probably doesn't know the mechanics of raising an angel round either; if he was even paying attention when Ron Conway wrote him the big check, he probably has forgotten about it by now.

I agree that this talk is useless, even dangerous, unless you are post A series.

Iftheshoefits• 12 years ago

Mark Zuckerberg is probably the worst possible example to use about anything startup related other than how to use one's wealthy parents' money and connections (and the connections' money) to start a company.

Edit for further explanation: Zuckerberg's initial capital for Facebook came from his father and his father's friends. He had been tutored privately from a young age, much like Bill Gates was, and he'd already had extensive experience working in founder-like roles by the time he made Facebook. His life is best used an example to demonstrate the immense advantage being born into a life of wealth and privilege confers, not as an example for what (or what not) to do when starting up a company for the typical person. His life is so removed from that that using it as an example is tantamount to uttering gibberish.

lukasm2• 12 years ago

I'm sorry but I don't get your point.

logicallee• 12 years ago

you'll have to explain...

dbecker• 12 years ago

Zuckerberg's bio on Wikipedia says that he is the son of a dentist and a psychiatrist. I'm sure there are plenty of Americans with wealthier or more connected families, and none of them have succeeded with their startup the way he has.

nostrademons• 12 years ago

Zuckerburg is a bad example; Facebook was his 3rd company, and his second (Synapse Media Player) reputedly got a million-dollar buyout offer from Microsoft. There are many reasons he might've chosen to incorporate as a Florida LLC; the likely one is that past experience with startups told him it wasn't important and could be fixed later, so he chose the simplest option.

Your overall point stands - Google or E-bay would be much better examples, as they really were started by first-time founders.

lurcio• 12 years ago

"Facebook was his 3rd company, and his second (Synapse Media Player) reputedly got a million-dollar buyout offer from Microsoft."

Surely that makes him a useful example to learn from?

graycat2• 12 years ago

He wants to keep some things really simple. Good.

I'm reminded of the description of the order during WWII for the US landing at Leyte Gulf: "Land and establish a base" or some such. Just that short. For some hundreds of thousands of soldiers.

So, for, say, the CTO, maybe "Implement the server farm."

In other ways he liked some things to be complicated, e.g., the story of the three page memo on how the receptionist should answer the phone.

marylu3• 12 years ago

you just need to browse and download all the things you need

marylu3• 12 years ago

today i will continue to find these work.

marylu3• 12 years ago

eventhough today is friday,i think i will continue my work as yesterday.

graycat2• 12 years ago

The lectures are from a good sampling of the most successful start-up people in Silicon Valley.

So, for any of the lectures, if not all the content seems earth shaking, Nobel prize level stuff, then just accept the good news: It's possible to be one of the most successful at the level of content often in the lectures! Comforting!

Udo2• 12 years ago

They definitely send a signal that success is possible, and even though the advice is (has to be, probably!) quite generic, it's still good to get a distilled overview of what the people who made this journey before us found important in hindsight.

Of course the best overall statement I ever heard from a successful person comes from Notch, who, when asked what advice he would give to someone who wanted to become as successful as him, replied: first of all, don't listen to advice. The deeper wisdom behind this that really hit a chord with me is there is no big secret which successful people can hand down to others so they may reliably replicate that success.

You might learn something, or even a lot, about procedures and attitudes that were essential, but at a fundamental level I don't think a successful person can meaningfully grasp all the factors that were instrumental to their story. A lot of what they think is essential may in fact be superstition, as they lack enough data points.

I found it's still valuable information, but as with anything, you have to weigh it critically. All things being equal, I'd put a lot more weight on advice coming from VCs or people running incubators as compared to the observations of super successful billionaire founders, simply because they have access to more data.

jonalmeida• 12 years ago

Notes: http://jonalmeida.com/posts/2014/11/06/htsas-lec14/

This is my (new) most interesting lecture. There's a psychological side to employee startup culture which is covered in some management classes that I haven't heard about being covered here.

Great stuff!

mceoin• 12 years ago

This was fantastic. Does anyone know good resources for building internal dashboards? (I can't help but think of the Business Model Canvas as a proxy example of the style of resource I mean)

ITpro2• 12 years ago

"Lectures"/"Talk" these do not compute in the real world.

If you know your field then you do not need this.

If you don't it won't make you succeed.

You need a capital, & that's the bottom line!

Without any kind of money which is time you simply can not do a startup.

Now, why people give up money to others? That's the real question.

I confidently can say at least 80% of the time it has nothing to do with the venture itself!

Connections, how you look/sound etc.

If you watch Shark tank you can see this clearly where Sharks bend the "rules" when they like someone.

Money is never an issue for them here, it's why would I give this person my money.

People tend to revert to these things because no one knows the future & unfortunately instead of making decisions rationally they end up going to the other end which is almost like consulting an oracle.

I am doing a Startup & have launched a fundraiser www.9mim.com & will share the process

Please check it out & give me your honest feedback to me this is more important than the $ itself as I'll do it regardless but with the $ it'll happen faster & have a better chance of succeeding.

Please do your feedback here

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=8567801

ITpro2• 12 years ago

The lecture is valuable, the presenter is engaging.

I guess this sums up the lecture :

"How to manage efficiently >irrational< people to get an output"

However I believe my previous comment is on topic & valuable too.

bernardlunn• 12 years ago

Very valuable lecture, basics of management explained very well

sreyaNotfilc• 12 years ago

"I hate watching this at lunch time during work hours" This is a complement on how great I think the series is.

I absolutely love this series of videos. Its supremely comprehensive and makes me just want to quit my job, drive home, and build an amazing company.

Unfortunately bills gets in the way so I have to work these 8 hours. That said, every time I do watch these videos I'm coding and planning on my off hours. Startup school in NYC was an amazing experience as well.

rajens• 12 years ago

The two big takeaways for me were: 1) The editor analogy for founders and 2) The Ammunition and Barrels metaphor. Looking at yourself as an editor that has to apply 'red ink' to your startup (especially as it grows) makes sense to me intuitively. As for the Ammunition and Barrels, I think this is counter intuitive but true. More manpower doesn't mean more results, unless you have the right type of manpower and process in place.

I'd probably distill most of his lecture down to these two core ideas...as a method of operating you're startup. As a result, I've summarized most of the useful quotes from the lecture here: https://medium.com/how-to-start-a-startup/56-quotes-from-kei...

avemuri• 12 years ago

While we're on the topic, recommendations for books that cover these topics in more depth?

How to Start a Startup – Lecture 14: How to Operate

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