Today is a sad day @masterclass. I made the really hard decision to reduce our team by 20% to adapt to the worsening macro environment and get to self sustainability faster. It was the most difficult decision I've had to make since we launched 7 years ago, because our team pours their heart and soul into MasterClass. They are some of the most creative, curious, caring and dedicated people in the world.

Early on we got lots of advice that our #1 priority should be: hire great people. That sounds great, until you pause and think: wait how do I actually do that?

It's hard and I’m no master at it, but lessons and advice we’ve learned (usually the hard way): 1. It starts before you interview a single person. Agree on the 3 must haves (just 3) for the role. Share that out beforehand with your team.

There is no one set path to do anything, but here is early career advice I wish I had known! What am I missing?! Ages 22-27: Maximize Learning. Ask 1,000 questions. Some of your peers will tease you for it, doesn't matter. You'll pass them up. Your goal is to learn what you don't know and start to get an idea of what excites you. Don't focus on salary or job title.

Nervous about joining an early stage startup? Let's talk about risk. There are two types of risk: job risk and career risk. People think they are the same. They aren't. They are very different. Job Risk = the chance your job will no longer exist. In a startup this is higher because the startup may not exist in a year.

We just raised our Series E in the middle of Covid. Raising this round was so different from other rounds! Biggest differences/lessons we learned: 1. Own the awkwardness. Pitching over video is just awkward. Just own it. After many attempts, I just decided to begin our pitches with: "I haven't mastered the art of pitching over Zoom and it'll be boring if I talk for the whole time -- so please interrupt, ask questions etc!".

When we were starting @masterclass, I kept hearing startup myths that made me question not only the idea, but myself as an entrepreneur. What helped me was thinking of counterfactuals. They were inspiring. Startup myths I felt and their counterfactuals: Myth #1: "You can't start that idea -- you aren't an expert in that!" Counterfactual: almost every entrepreneur. @elonmusk wasn't an expert in payments, batteries, rockets and solar panels. @JeffBezos didn't run bookstores.

I don’t know the secret to starting a great company. I am not sure there is one. But a few things that helped me starting out:

1. Picking a few constraints. They fueled my creativity. My first one: pick an idea that even if it fails, I’ll be proud of it. 2. Accepting that 90% of people will think your idea is either impossible or sucks. Great ideas always seem impossible at first.