Unconventional Advice for Founders [Entire Talk] - Garry Tan (Y Combinator)

Key ideas

Tan draws on his own mistakes to tell founders to address childhood baggage early, distrust the press, build products rather than sell time, and stay small and human.

From a machine transcript of the audio. Quotes link to the moment they are said.

1. 1

   Deal with your past before you lead

   Tan says a direct report told his co-founder that he was the worst manager the person had ever had, which showed him how his upbringing shaped his handling of conflict. He describes avoiding conflict and then blowing up at people, and says not dealing with this early enough is part of why his startup did not work out. He recommends the Adverse Childhood Experience test and getting therapy early, calling it cheap compared with what people spend on other things.

2. 2

   Do not let media define what matters

   Tan calls turning down an early offer from Palantir his biggest mistake, and says he did so partly because the press was not writing about selling software to government agencies. He says huge ideas tend to sound stupid at first, and that the largest companies started where the ability to build met knowledge of a hard problem. Asked how to find problems, he suggests ignoring what is hot and pulling on what you uniquely know and believe, even if it is weird.

3. 3

   Learn or earn, and sell products, not time

   Tan says Microsoft paid him $74,000 a year while, as he recalls, making about $650,000 in profit per employee, so he came to see each job as a trade in which you get a fraction of the value you create, and what you learn is the priceless part. He reads his later rage quits as signs he had learned what he wanted, and recommends learning or earning as the test, without burning bridges. He wishes he had moved from consulting to products sooner, and had treated each dollar as months of freedom rather than buying a new car.

4. 4

   Treat team, customers and capital as one loop

   Tan uses the game Katamari Damacy to describe a startup: you start tiny, and whatever you pick up helps you pick up something bigger. He says a great co-founder helps win customers, customers help raise money, and money helps hire, so if you are stuck on one you should switch to another. He also urges founders to widen their range, and suggests that non-technical people learn to code so they can hire and sell better.

5. 5

   When small, act small

   Tan warns against imitating big companies and likens a startup to throwing a great party rather than building a machine. His team at Posterous split the inbox by day of the week and aimed to answer every email within 10 minutes, fixing bugs on the spot. He cites an early Usenet study in which 16 percent of people returned without a reply and 26 percent with one, and argues the same logic applies to developer tools and B2B.

In Garry’s words

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