The Right Kind of Asshole
While Marc Andreessen may still be right in his assessment that the complexion of a market is the biggest determinant of startup success, talent may be the least replicable element. It was comparatively easy to see Uber’s early success and emulate the product, harder to manufacture the manic win-at-all-costs mentality and technical savvy of Travis ... See more
Mario Gabriele • VC's War for Talent
Steve Blank—a Silicon Valley entrepreneur and Stanford professor—has a theory he calls “dysfunctional family theory.”[4] He says that good entrepreneurs “have similar personality
Dan Martell • Buy Back Your Time: Get Unstuck, Reclaim Your Freedom, and Build Your Empire
Sam Altman, the former head of the venture capital firm Y Combinator, offers his own take on the idiosyncrasies of founders:8 I look for founders who are scrappy and formidable at the same time (a rarer combination than it sounds); mission-oriented, obsessed with their companies, relentless, and determined; extremely smart (necessary but certainly
... See moreTyler Cowen • Talent: How to Identify Energizers, Creatives, and Winners Around the World
It is a better world if our most prominent people are moral exemplars with happy family lives. However, after a decade of meeting billionaires, reading biographies of highly successful people, and building products myself, I’ve come to accept that the opposite is probably true. The highest level of success requires wholly unreasonable people. Musk ... See more
The same traits that make people a nightmare to deal with can also make them the people who change the world.