Alfred Lin (Sequoia Capital) at Startup Grind San Francisco
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- čas přidán 20. 07. 2014
- Alfred Lin focuses on consumer internet, enterprise and mobile investments. He is a Director of Achievers, Airbnb, Houzz, Humble Bundle, Kiwi, Romotive and Stella & Dot. Prior to joining Sequoia Capital in 2010, Alfred was Chairman and COO/CFO of Zappos.com (AMZN). Prior to Zappos.com, Alfred was VP of Finance and Business Development of Tellme Networks (MSFT). Previously, Alfred was Co-Founder and General Manager of Venture Frogs, LLC and invested in companies such as Ask Jeeves (IACI), MongoMusic (MSFT), MyAble (OPWV), OpenTable (OPEN), Tellme (MSFT) and Zappos.com (AMZN). Alfred began his startup career as VP of Finance of LinkExchange (MSFT). Alfred has a B.A. in Applied Mathematics from Harvard and an M.S. in Statistics from Stanford.
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Intriguing and revealing questions with thoughtful and witty answers. Amazing interview by both participants.
Great talk, Alfred is very knowledgable. Thanks for sharing!
41:00 *When starting a company and in venture capital, there’s no playbook - you’re basically trying to do something that nobody has done before.*
8:20 In some ways, you should ignore the climate. If you love what you're doing, you're going to love it during good or bad times. If you don't love what you're doing, you find out during bad times that you don't love it; you're not actually that passionate about it. That's the only downside of starting or joining a company during the good times. Things tend to go pretty well in good times, you don't really know how bad it is until the bad times. Fast forward and ask, what's the worst thing that could happen, and how would you deal with it? Regret functions. If I were to do A, B and C, would I regret X, Y and X?
9:20 Lots of people could care less whether it's a $1 Bn company, or they tried to make it a $1 Bn company and it didn't end up that way - they could care less about the actual results - they just love starting a company. If you're that type of person and can answer that truthfully, you should go start a company. But if as soon as things go poorly, you're not going to enjoy it or you're not going to want to dig out of the hole you created, you're probably not suited for it. The best companies in the world aren't the ones that get started in good times, get a product going, and get acquired in a few years - the best ones can survive ups and downs, and go through business cycle after business cycle.
11:14 A firm like Sequoia doesn't make many investments a year, don't think of themselves as investors, wants to become business partners with the founders. They're not trying to just buy low and sell high. They're trying to understand the founders, who they are and what makes them tick - not so much about the business itself up front.
21:30 Startup Culture = if you don't live the values, that's not your culture. Culture gets expressed. The founder sets the tone for the culture. Generally your personal values become the company's values when you're the founder. You want to be explicit about which 10 core values are part of the company culture (tenants or principles). This is the living, breathing idea of the type people you want to hire, so have it in writing and modify it as time goes by. Helps you think through the type of people you want to have in the company, and the type of people you don't want to have in the company.
23:30 The type of questions you ask during the interview are basically going to determine the culture - even for the 2nd and 3rd employee working in a garage. You're asking them questions not just based off qualifications. The attitude the person portrays is going to set the tone of the culture. Hiring a bunch of engineers = creates engineering culture. Hiring a bunch of salespeople = creates sales culture. As the company grows, in the beginning you have a set of things that define what's most important to the company. In Silicon Valley product & engineering dominate.
25:25 If you compromise on your values or your standards, you’re setting yourself up to having to deal with a personnel problem later. Companies that have gotten the right thing off the bat - where they focused on BOTH the combination of making sure they have the right skill set and the values, they’re much better off. You’re going to hire someone and that person is going to hire someone else, so If you compromise on either the skill set or the values, you’re just setting yourself up for having a bunch of compromises along the way.
26:00 Don’t compromise on your values early on.
31:48 If co-founders are stepping over each other and they can’t seem to be getting along - building a great company together is probably not going to happen.
38:50 If you’ve got a good team of people that look at the world holistically, it’ll let you make better decisions. Surround yourself with people that see the world differently than you, and from a different angle. If you’re really good at tech and engineering, find people who are going to be good at sales and marketing. When you come together and look at the world from different perspectives and come to the same conclusion, it’ll be a better conclusion than only looking from your limited vantage point - whether technology, sales, or marketing. That’s the complimentary view and skillset that you want to have. Seek people out that compliment you.
41:00 One of the fun things about business are that there’s no hard or fast rules (or very few). Solo founders vs. co-founders aren’t a guaranteed predictor of success.
41:30 In venture capital and in starting a company, you’re basically trying to do something that nobody else has ever done before. So there’s no playbook. If it works, it’s based off a fair amount of mutual trust and admiration amongst co-founders, yet complimentary. The different angles can very easily pull you apart.
42:30 There are not hard and fast rules, but If it works, it’s because it’s based off a fair amount of mutual trust and admiration for each other as co-founders, and yet complimentary. And that’s the tension - because you are going to look at the world from different angles and different perspectives, and you have to figure out how to come together. The different angles can very easily pull you apart; so the thing that can pull you back together is having a similar set of values.
another Taiwanese individual is in the Guinness World Book of Records for holding 4 PhDs ...
why don't you finish it for fun, Alfie ... mom will be happy :)