A MASTER operator and investor: @rabois
Yesterday: @chamath’s SPAC merger with @Opendoor
Today I inhaled Keith’s podcasts:
• @APompliano
• @eriktorenberg
• @Jason
• @david_perell
• @Patrick_oshag
• @AdamDraper
Here are 10 of his most IMPACTFUL ideas
🧵👇
1/ Who is @rabois?
• Political Science at Stanford, Harvard Law
• Exec at @PayPal @LinkedIn @Square
• PayPal Mafia with @elonmusk, @peterthiel, @reidhoffman, @mlevchin
• Investor @Airbnb, @YouTube, @stripe, @DoorDash
• Partner @foundersfund, Founder @Opendoor
2/ Barrels vs. Ammunition
• Barrels: people that take ideas from conception to shipping
• Ammunition: people that can execute a given task
• A company’s output is tied to the number of barrels
Find barrels by constantly expanding scope of responsibilities for employees
3/ Hiring
• Hire aptitude for upside and experience for mitigating risk
• Focus on finding and hiring undiscovered talent
• Interview question: “If you were a product, how would you describe your value proposition”
4/ @rabois’s Investment Criteria
What is anomalous?
What ‘secret’ is the company predicated on?
Could this be 1 of the most important companies on the planet?
What is the accumulating advantage?
Can the founder attract the right talent?
Our investor comparative advantage?
5/ Delayed Gratification
• Keys to success aren’t secret, they’re just painful
• It’s all about deferring immediate for delayed gratification
• “Can you trade long-term gratification for short term sacrifice, and can you compress the feedback loop?”
6/ Accumulating Advantages: as a company gets better/grows, it becomes easier to run
• Eventually B-B+ players can run the company, because it’s so strong you don’t need heroic efforts of talented people
• Why does it become easier? Trust and increased credibility
7/ Successful people
• People that change the world have extreme talent in 1-2 dimensions, then a screw loose in 1-2 dimensions
• Excellent at prioritization and allocating their time
• Ask “How and why are they successful”: Decompose it and try to emulate that
8/ Valuing your time
• Be aware of what you’re consuming and how to get the most possible leverage out of that time
• Spend time with people that are smarter and more successful than you
• Consume more content that’s stood the test of time
9/ “People who are naive about markets, do better than those with experience.”
• @patrickc with @stripe
• @elonmusk knew nothing about cars before @Tesla
• @rabois knew nothing about real estate before @Opendoor
With industry experience, less ‘WHY?’ questions
10/ You don’t discover a startup market, you create it.
“You imagine a better future, you create it, and then you sell tickets” - @rabois
Very different than the @ycombinator method
11/ If you want to learn more from @rabois, he started a short form podcast on @NuggetAudio called “How to Build an Iconic Company”
13/ Sources:
open.spotify.com/episode/4DwtIE…
perell.com/podcast/keith-…
investorfieldguide.com/rabois/
14/ Sources (cont.)
thisweekinstartups.com/keith-rabois-p…
open.spotify.com/episode/4Hkz6d…
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