Bryant Wu

Ignorant, or younger, or new entrepreneurs sometimes think that all money is equal when you're raising money, especially at your first round and your later rounds. You just think, "I just want to get the best price. Money is money." The ones who choose the wrong money learn pretty quickly of their errors. Company building is craftwork. It is not... See more

What are the most common reasons for failure in this type of business that you've observed again and again?

One threat was we get hollowed out vertical by vertical by specialized marketplaces, because one of the benefits of the horizontal marketplace is the consumer can go to anywhere they want and find what they're looking for. One of the negatives is it's really hard to tailor the experience to the unique attributes of that vertical

sometimes as an entrepreneur, you have to over-index to courage. You have to think about the world that you wish to exist, not the one that does exist. As investor, I'm constantly looking at distribution of probabilities, that those outcomes will in fact be achieved.

You have to continue to be adopting your decision framework. One was whenever I saw a bargain, I should run. It's a sign of no heat. Whenever I did a bargain, I regretted it later. Whenever I was forced to pay up, to date that has been a very good basket of companies

Taking the time to make sure that every hire early on is the right person and the right fit, the right combination of courage, brains, and heart is incredibly important. I've always been very focused on that. The mistakes you ask about. I guess my advice to entrepreneurs out there, and I guess any businessperson honestly, is that it takes some... See more

Like you said, you examine the invention and then it tells you so much about the inventor. What that also tells me is if I were, instead of an investor at that moment at Y Combinator, if was trying to decide if I was going to go work there, that was going to be the way I could tell I wanted to work there