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Justin Kan

@justinkan

20 Sep

@Twitch

Did people treat me differently after I sold @Twitch?

Absolutely.

Here's what $970,000,000 taught me about life, fake friends, and making new ones:

A common intuition about wealth and success is that it inevitably attracts a circle of predatory ‘fake friends’.

After we sold to Amazon in 2014, people saw me in a different way.

Success naturally draws people to you, and they start seeing you differently. Your status represents something to them.

Sometimes it is inspiration, but often it is opportunity.

Read 25 tweets

Justin Kan

@justinkan

16 Sep

Founders spend too much time building products and not enough on good habits.

Good habits saved my life:

I spent a majority of my life battling bad habits, including an alcohol addiction for over 20 years.

I didn't know it at the time, but it was slowly killing me.

I had this idea in my head that habits, skills, and attributes developed as a child would remain permanently even through adulthood.

Looking back, this sounds ridiculous

Read 16 tweets

Justin Kan

@justinkan

9 Sep

What if I told you that I felt like a failure even after selling Twitch for a billion dollars?

This is for anyone experiencing impostor syndrome:

When you're in a startup, it's easy to feel like everyone else is crushing it while you are drowning.

Comparison is a fundamental part of our human nature and it is also our greatest bane.

This is the consequence of information asymmetry.

You're always seeing examples of the good news; everyone else is only showing the positive stuff.

Meanwhile, you are observing the full range of your own experiences. Some are good, some are bad.

Read 17 tweets

Justin Kan

@justinkan

4 Sep

@ycombinator

Here's what you need to know (and avoid) when it comes to company growth:

(from a former @ycombinator partner who failed a bunch of companies and sold one for $1 billion)

@mattfong_

Inspired by a conversation I had with my friends @mattfong_ , @jamiequint, and @eshear's iconic thread celebrating the 10 year anniversary of @Twitch

1. Don't over-rely on press as your primary distribution strategy.

There are very rare cases of companies that manage to hack the press by forcing reporters to write about them over and over again.

Read 16 tweets

Justin Kan

@justinkan

27 Aug

You are sabotaging your own personal and professional growth if you're not finding time to read.

These are the books that changed my life, and what I learned from them:

1. 'The 15 Commitments of Conscious Leadership'

Taught me how to reframe responsibility to take agency, and approac things with an open and curious mindset.

It also allowed me to bring emotional vulnerability to work

(cont.)

The key to agency is learning how to operate at the zone around 100% responsibility

Taking < 100% is a victim-mentality: you are letting things happen to you.

Conversely, taking > 100% is overstepping boundaries and playing the hero role

Read 16 tweets

Justin Kan

@justinkan

19 Aug

I've been a mentor to countless founders over the years

Here are the common traps 🪤 founders fall into that guarantee failure:

Waiting way too long to start their company.

I see this too often - people waiting for the 'perfect' opportunity and psyching themselves out and getting scared.

The secret:

There is never a perfect opportunity. You should start yesterday.

Being blinded by 'consistency' over truth.

Its important to recognize when your initial ideas aren't working;

Developing the wisdom to know when to pivot and adapt is such a vital skill.

Don't be a slave to the sunk-cost-fallacy.

Read 19 tweets

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