Podcast appearances and mentions of Keith Rabois

  • 81PODCASTS
  • 168EPISODES
  • 51mAVG DURATION
  • 1MONTHLY NEW EPISODE
  • Mar 13, 2023LATEST

POPULARITY

20152016201720182019202020212022


Best podcasts about Keith Rabois

Latest podcast episodes about Keith Rabois

Billion Dollar Tech
From $0 - $3B | Peek Inside Crypto Unicorn Anchorage Digital

Billion Dollar Tech

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 13, 2023 54:19


“What if we could do it better than anyone else in the ecosystem?” Nathan McCauley asked himself while co-founding Anchorage Digital, a unicorn assets platform that provides instantly settled key storage and custody—holding investments on behalf of investors—for digital assets like Bitcoin and Ethereum. Before starting this venture, he worked at financial services platform Square, where he performed what he called “financial security” for four years with his future Anchorage Digital co-founder Diogo Monica. There the two helped to design the digital card reader with Jack Dorsey. Wanting to learn more about the sales, marketing and development aspects of B2B business before starting their own company, he and Diogo joined Docker, a software platform that helps developers to build, run and share applications.  Nathan talks about working at Square with Jack Dorsey and Keith Rabois, their unique approaches to leadership, and what the experience at Docker was versus what he thought it was going to be. Brendan explains the problem with overindexing on opportunities to make what turn out to be largely unneeded products. Early on in his career, Nathan's managers constantly evaluated him as having “irrational optimism.” He later learned about the power of being paranoid.  Nathan started Anchorage because he wanted to build a culture, one in which his employees could find a purpose and enrich their lives. With this motivation still at the forefront, he spends a lot of time interviewing potential employees. He explains the key to finding the right people who align with the company's mission.  Quotes: “This idea of sitting around and waiting for good opportunities and then when you find them, putting everything into them. One of the things that would've happened if I decided to start a company just after Square is I would've probably gone after a smaller opportunity that wasn't as high leverage as Anchorage. And so I'm extremely grateful for the patience aspect of it. In terms of waiting for the right opportunity, that was a good fit for mine and my co-founders' skillset. That's not to say that I didn't learn a ton from Docker. I actually did learn a ton from Docker too. But it's kind of a dual purpose of learning a lot, learning about enterprise sales, learning about marketing, but also not jumping into something that was not as big of an opportunity as it possibly could have been.” (24:29-25:18 | Nathan)  “We had this idea of a very secure system without a problem that actually needed solving that way, the custody problem coming along was almost this conceptual model of an idea of a very secure system that finally had a use case that we could build towards. So the answer to that ends up being that we had a very clear product vision very early on what needed to get built,  but we did not want to build an mvp. because we knew the very nature of the product was likely to hold non-trivial amounts of funds very early on. We didn't want to do anything less than good enough in the first version.” (29:44-30:27 | Nathan)  “The most useful outlet for fear is to keep innovating.” (35:46-35:50 | Nathan) Connect with Brendan Dell: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendandell/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/BrendanDell Instagram: @thebrendandell TikTok: @brendandell39 Buy a copy of Brendan's Book, The 12 Immutable Laws of High-Impact Messaging: https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780578210926    Connect with Nathan McCauley: Anchorage.com nathan@anchorage.com Check out Nathan's recommended books:   Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points that Challenge Every Company by Andrew S. Grove https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780385483827 Titan: The Life of John D. Rockefeller, Sr. by Ron Chernow https://www.indiebound.org/book/9781400077304 A History of the World in Ten and a Half Chapters by Julian Barnes https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780679731375 Raids on the Unspeakable by Thomas Merton https://www.indiebound.org/book/9780811201018 Please don't forget to rate, comment, and subscribe to Billion Dollar Tech on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you listen to podcasts! Use code Brendan30 for 30% off your annual membership with RiverSide.fm  Podcast production and show notes provided by HiveCast.fm

My First Million
From the Vaults: How Suleman Ali Made His First Million

My First Million

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 27, 2023 80:20


Episode 412: We re-run episode 1 of My First Million with Suleman Ali. ----- * Do you love MFM and want to see Sam and Shaan's smiling faces? Subscribe to our Youtube channel. * Want more insights like MFM? Check out Shaan's newsletter. ------ Show Notes: We talk with tech founder & investor Suleman "Suli" Ali (@sulemanali) about his journey from making $76k a year at Microsoft to selling multiple companies for $100,000,000+. Highlights: Meeting Naval (19:00) getting grilled by Keith Rabois (22:00), & risking his life savings on TinyCo (57:00)   ----- Past guests on My First Million include Rob Dyrdek, Hasan Minhaj, Balaji Srinivasan, Jake Paul, Dr. Andrew Huberman, Gary Vee, Lance Armstrong, Sophia Amoruso, Ariel Helwani, Ramit Sethi, Stanley Druckenmiller, Peter Diamandis, Dharmesh Shah, Brian Halligan, Marc Lore, Jason Calacanis, Andrew Wilkinson, Julian Shapiro, Kat Cole, Codie Sanchez, Nader Al-Naji, Steph Smith, Trung Phan, Nick Huber, Anthony Pompliano, Ben Askren, Ramon Van Meer, Brianne Kimmel, Andrew Gazdecki, Scott Belsky, Moiz Ali, Dan Held, Elaine Zelby, Michael Saylor, Ryan Begelman, Jack Butcher, Reed Duchscher, Tai Lopez, Harley Finkelstein, Alexa von Tobel, Noah Kagan, Nick Bare, Greg Isenberg, James Altucher, Randy Hetrick and more. ----- Additional episodes you might enjoy: • #224 Rob Dyrdek - How Tracking Every Second of His Life Took Rob Drydek from 0 to $405M in Exits • #209 Gary Vaynerchuk - Why NFTS Are the Future • #178 Balaji Srinivasan - Balaji on How to Fix the Media, Cloud Cities & Crypto * #169 - How One Man Started 5, Billion Dollar Companies, Dan Gilbert's Empire, & Talking With Warren Buffett • ​​​​#218 - Why You Should Take a Think Week Like Bill Gates • Dave Portnoy vs The World, Extreme Body Monitoring, The Future of Apparel Retail, "How Much is Anthony Pompliano Worth?", and More • How Mr Beast Got 100M Views in Less Than 4 Days, The $25M Chrome Extension, and More We talk with tech founder & investor Suleman "Suli" Ali (@sulemanali) about his journey from making $76k a year at Microsoft to selling multiple companies for $100,000,000+. Highlights: Meeting Naval (19:00) getting grilled by Keith Rabois (22:00), & risking his life savings on TinyCo (57:00)   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

This Week in Startups - Audio
Keith Rabois on 2023 macro outlook, startup valuations, founder advice, ChatGPT vs Google | E1650

This Week in Startups - Audio

Play Episode Listen Later Jan 4, 2023 69:11


Multiple time guest and friend of the pod Keith Rabois is back! Jason and Keith talk 2023 macro outlook (1:00), big tech's impact on startups (10:01), advice for founders (18:24), Meta's risky VR bet (27:22), ChatGPT vs Google (39:05), and more! (0:00) Jason intros today's guest: Keith Rabois! (1:00) Keith's 2023 macro outlook and thoughts on startup valuations (8:54) Vanta - Get $1000 off your SOC 2 at https://vanta.com/twist (10:01) What are big tech hiring freezes and RIFs doing to the startup market? Entitlement era coming to an end (18:24) Advice for different archetypes of founders (25:50) Acquire.com - Sign up for FREE at https://try.acquire.com/twist (27:22) Importance of founder authority, Tim Cook taking over for Steve Jobs at Apple, Meta's risky VR bet (37:34) Apply for the LAUNCH Accelerator: https://launchaccelerator.co (39:05) Keith's thoughts on ChatGPT, a new approach to search, and Microsoft taking on Google (53:37) What types of founders is Keith looking to invest in right now? (59:25) OpenDoor thoughts + a little politics FOLLOW Keith: https://twitter.com/rabois FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

HUM Curated Podcasts
#278 Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

HUM Curated Podcasts

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 1, 2022 66:32


Podcast: Founders (LS 53 · TOP 0.5% what is this?)Episode: #278 Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the FuturePub date: 2022-11-22What I learned from rereading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: The easiest way to sell your business. Quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Fable: Make your product accessible to more people. Tegus is a search engine for business knowledge that's used by Founders, investors, and executives. Subscribe to listen to Founders Daily (my new daily podcast)[4:01] Jobs's return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business-the creation of new valuecannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.[5:00] A really important sentence to understand one of the main points in Peter's book: Apple's value crucially depended on the singular vision of a particular person.[5:00] A unique founder can make authoritative decisions, inspire strong personal loyalty, and plan ahead for decades.[6:00] Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Founders #31)[7:00] Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.[8:00] By creating new technologies we rewrite the plan of the world.[9:00] The paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula necessarily cannot exist; because every innovation is new and unique, no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative.The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.[10:00] The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. —Steve Jobs[11:00] Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.[13:00] A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company's most important strength is new thinking.[14:00] What follows is not a manual or a record of knowledge but an exercise in thinking. Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.[14:00] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233)[17:00] Their casual way of conducting affairs did not appeal to me. — Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller (Founders #148)[18:00] My number one repeated learning in life: There Are No Adults. Everyone's making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it. —Naval Ravikant[19:00] Bill Gurley's answer to the question For people who were there, does this feel like dot-com bust level unwiding yet? Yes.  Link to tweet[21:00] Peter's 4 principles for founders:1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality.2. A bad plan is better than no plan.3. Competitive markets destroy profits.4. Sales matters just as much as product.[22:00] The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.[22:00] By “monopoly,” we mean the kind of company that's so good at what it does that no other firm can offer a close substitute.[24:00] Every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot.[25:00] Durability has always been a first rate virtue in Charlie's eyes. — Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. (Founders #90)[27:00] If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now?[27:00] There is no shortcut to monopoly[28:00] A substantive advantage makes your product difficult or impossible to replicate.[30:00] The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors.[32:00] Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.[32:00] Victory awaits him who has everything in order.[33:00] My heroes are people who took epic journeys into the unknown often at substantial personal risk. I am simply following the path that they carved into history. —Explore/Create My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark by Richard Garriott.[35:00] Instead of pursuing many-sided mediocrity and calling it "wellroundedness," a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. She strives to be great at something substantive— to be a monopoly of one.[36:00] Long-term planning is often undervalued by our indefinite short-term world.[39:00] Monopoly businesses capture more value than millions of undifferentiated competitors.[40:00] Most startups fail and most venture funds fail with them.[43:00]  You cannot trust a world that denies the power law to accurately frame your decisions for you, so what's most important is rarely obvious. It might even be a secret.[44:00] I also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those games or make those investments where I have an edge. — A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222)[45:00] Schlep Blindness by Paul Graham  [46:00] Great companies can be built on open but unsuspected secrets about how the world works.[47:00] Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire by Peter Thielby Ryan Holiday[48:00] The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that's hidden from the outside.[51:00] Keith Rabois on Peter Theil insisting on focus[54:00] Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true.[56:00] Advertising doesn't exist to make you buy a product right away; it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later. Anyone who cannot acknowledge its likely effect on himself is doubly deceived.I use Readwise to organize and remember everything I read. You can try Readwise for 60 days for free https://readwise.io/founders/—Subscribe to listen to Founders Daily—“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders PodcastThe podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from David Senra , which is the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Listen Notes, Inc.

Founders
#278 Peter Thiel: Zero To One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future

Founders

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 22, 2022 66:32


What I learned from rereading Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future by Peter Thiel.This episode is brought to you by: Tiny: The easiest way to sell your business. Quick and straightforward exits for Founders. Fable: Make your product accessible to more people. Tegus is a search engine for business knowledge that's used by Founders, investors, and executives. Subscribe to listen to Founders Daily (my new daily podcast)[4:01] Jobs's return to Apple 12 years later shows how the most important task in business-the creation of new valuecannot be reduced to a formula and applied by professionals.[5:00] A really important sentence to understand one of the main points in Peter's book: Apple's value crucially depended on the singular vision of a particular person.[5:00] A unique founder can make authoritative decisions, inspire strong personal loyalty, and plan ahead for decades.[6:00] Conspiracy: Peter Thiel, Hulk Hogan, Gawker, and the Anatomy of Intrigue and Zero to One: Notes on Startups, or How to Build the Future (Founders #31)[7:00] Properly understood, any new and better way of doing things is technology.[8:00] By creating new technologies we rewrite the plan of the world.[9:00] The paradox of teaching entrepreneurship is that such a formula necessarily cannot exist; because every innovation is new and unique, no authority can prescribe in concrete terms how to be innovative.The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people find value in unexpected places, and they do this by thinking about business from first principles instead of formulas.[10:00] The minute that you understand that you can poke life and actually something will pop out the other side, that you can change it, you can mold it. That's maybe the most important thing. It's to shake off this erroneous notion that life is there and you're just gonna live in it, versus embrace it, change it, improve it, make your mark upon it. —Steve Jobs[11:00] Brilliant thinking is rare, but courage is in even shorter supply than genius.[13:00] A startup is the largest group of people you can convince of a plan to build a different future. A new company's most important strength is new thinking.[14:00] What follows is not a manual or a record of knowledge but an exercise in thinking. Because that is what a startup has to do: question received ideas and rethink business from scratch.[14:00] The Founders: The Story of Paypal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni. (Founders #233)[17:00] Their casual way of conducting affairs did not appeal to me. — Random Reminiscences of Men and Events by John D. Rockefeller (Founders #148)[18:00] My number one repeated learning in life: There Are No Adults. Everyone's making it up as they go along. Figure it out yourself, and do it. —Naval Ravikant[19:00] Bill Gurley's answer to the question For people who were there, does this feel like dot-com bust level unwiding yet? Yes.  Link to tweet[21:00] Peter's 4 principles for founders:1. It is better to risk boldness than triviality.2. A bad plan is better than no plan.3. Competitive markets destroy profits.4. Sales matters just as much as product.[22:00] The most contrarian thing of all is not to oppose the crowd but to think for yourself.[22:00] By “monopoly,” we mean the kind of company that's so good at what it does that no other firm can offer a close substitute.[24:00] Every business is successful exactly to the extent that it does something others cannot.[25:00] Durability has always been a first rate virtue in Charlie's eyes. — Poor Charlie's Almanack: The Wit and Wisdom of Charles T. Munger. (Founders #90)[27:00] If you focus on near-term growth above all else, you miss the most important question you should be asking: will this business still be around a decade from now?[27:00] There is no shortcut to monopoly[28:00] A substantive advantage makes your product difficult or impossible to replicate.[30:00] The perfect target market for a startup is a small group of particular people concentrated together and served by few or no competitors.[32:00] Shallow men believe in luck. Strong men believe in cause and effect.[32:00] Victory awaits him who has everything in order.[33:00] My heroes are people who took epic journeys into the unknown often at substantial personal risk. I am simply following the path that they carved into history. —Explore/Create My Life in Pursuit of New Frontiers, Hidden Worlds, and the Creative Spark by Richard Garriott.[35:00] Instead of pursuing many-sided mediocrity and calling it "wellroundedness," a definite person determines the one best thing to do and then does it. She strives to be great at something substantive— to be a monopoly of one.[36:00] Long-term planning is often undervalued by our indefinite short-term world.[39:00] Monopoly businesses capture more value than millions of undifferentiated competitors.[40:00] Most startups fail and most venture funds fail with them.[43:00]  You cannot trust a world that denies the power law to accurately frame your decisions for you, so what's most important is rarely obvious. It might even be a secret.[44:00] I also believed then, as I do now after more than fifty years as a money manager, that the surest way to get rich is to play only those games or make those investments where I have an edge. — A Man for All Markets: From Las Vegas to Wall Street, How I Beat the Dealer and the Market by Ed Thorp. (Founders #222)[45:00] Schlep Blindness by Paul Graham  [46:00] Great companies can be built on open but unsuspected secrets about how the world works.[47:00] Conspiracy: A True Story of Power, Sex, and a Billionaire's Secret Plot to Destroy a Media Empire by Peter Thielby Ryan Holiday[48:00] The best entrepreneurs know this: every great business is built around a secret that's hidden from the outside.[51:00] Keith Rabois on Peter Theil insisting on focus[54:00] Superior sales and distribution by itself can create a monopoly, even with no product differentiation. The converse is not true.[56:00] Advertising doesn't exist to make you buy a product right away; it exists to embed subtle impressions that will drive sales later. Anyone who cannot acknowledge its likely effect on himself is doubly deceived.I use Readwise to organize and remember everything I read. You can try Readwise for 60 days for free https://readwise.io/founders/—Subscribe to listen to Founders Daily—“I have listened to every episode released and look forward to every episode that comes out. The only criticism I would have is that after each podcast I usually want to buy the book because I am interested so my poor wallet suffers. ” — GarethBe like Gareth. Buy a book: All the books featured on Founders Podcast

OnBoard!
EP 19. 前 Opendoor 数据负责人杜磊:与 PayPal 黑帮一起从0打造百亿美金上市公司之路

OnBoard!

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 21, 2022 142:02


今天这一期访谈,几个月前就录制完了。过去几个月,市场的波动,中美大厂的裁员,让这位嘉宾的故事,此时变得格外应景。如果你是创业者、创业公司管理层,还是在关键转折点的职场人士,或者想了解AI技术产品化和落地过程,都值得来听听,这个与硅谷创业黑帮一起打造百亿美金上市公司的故事。 Hello World, who is OnBoard?! 你是否好奇,跟着硅谷著名的 Paypal Mafia 成员一起创业是怎样的体验?要知道,这个创业的攒局者,是硅谷颇有些特立独行的传奇投资人 Keith Rabios, Paypal 黑帮的核心人物之一,跟他组合起来的硅谷精英团队一起从0到1到100 打造百亿美金上市公司的历程,怎样估计你之前听的也不多。 你还可以听到,一位在中国工作了小十年的技术人,在35岁程序猿危机之际,来到硅谷参与创业、转型管理,有哪些挑战哪些收获,或许可以给类似职业阶段的你一些新的灵感。 如果你对企业管理、对AI落地应用感兴趣,也可以听听一群 Stanford 高材生如何用接地气的组织方式,一步一步地将AI应用到一个传统的重运营的行业中。 最后,正如很多从成功 startup 中的从业者的下一步,转身成为天使投资人的他,分享了他所关注的硅谷的几个新兴领域和几个非常有意思的公司。 这次不知不觉,又聊了两个多小时。话题角度很多,但是内容都非常精彩。Enjoy! 关于嘉宾 杜磊,前微软中国搜索排名的机器学习工程师,2015年加入 Opendoor, 负责数据科学与机器学习的开发。亲历了Opendoor 从十几人到2020年上市,最高市值超过200亿美金的过程。之后转型成为天使投资人,现在担任 Sancus Ventures advisor, 并最近创立了 web3 公司 Huma Finance. Opendoor:2014年成立的硅谷初创公司,通过预先购买和智能定价的方式,改变传统房屋购买的中介模式,颠覆买卖房屋的流程。上市前融资超过15亿美金,2020.12在 NASDAQ 上市,IPO 估值超过180亿美金。 我们聊了什么 02:07 访谈开场 & Monica 的背景介绍 04:03 杜磊对自己经历的回顾,从虎扑到微软,如何在硅谷 co-email 公司 CTO 进入 Opendoor 09:00 Opendoor 如何通过独特的面试过程吸引候选人 11:27 Opendoor 到底是做什么的,它的商业模式为什么有颠覆性 15:31 Opendoor 攒局者 Keith Rabois 是怎样的传奇人物 17:54 杜磊在 Opendoor 成长不同阶段担任的不同职务 20:43 Opendoor 明星团队成长中面临的艰难决定,早年如何找到 PMF 30:00 重资本投入的业务,如何在增长和利润中找到平衡 33:22 为什么有各种优势的巨头 Zillow 进入 Opendoor 的领域反而失败了 44:07 投资人视角,如何看待巨头的竞争,为什么说有时候慢就是快 48:15 如何保持聚焦,为什么北极星指标可能没有那么重要 52:12 如何通过 AI 在重运营的行业实现算法的规模化落地 69:32 如何让算法团队也参与到运营中,打造一个“全栈” 数据科学团队 74:29 初创公司如何刻意构建文化,细节和自上而下的重要性 84:15 如何观察极致信息透明,鼓励尝试犯错这些文化 91:47 面试过程中如何做文化筛选 95:30 为什么要将面试过程当做销售过程来设计 102:31 公司发展过程中,依赖内部员工晋升还是外部空降? 109:13 Opendoor 历程中影响最大的三个人 116:59 杜磊作为天使投资人最关注的三个领域:ML/data, 创作者经济,web3 121:53 观察到的中美创业创投市场差异 127:39 Monica 最喜欢的快问快答环节!好多好书好物推荐! 我们提到的种种 Keith Rabois:硅谷传奇投资人,先后任 Paypal 早年EVP,Linkedin VP, Square COO, 转身投资人后先后任 Khosla Ventures, Founders Fund 合伙人,现在又回到创业领域,2021年开始任初创公司 OpenStore CEO. Paypal Mafia: Paypal 黑帮,指 PayPal 一群早期员工,离开之后纷纷成为成功创业者,包括 Elon Musk (不用介绍了……), Peter Thiel (Founders Fund, Palantir 创始人),Reid Hoffman (Linkedin 联合创始人,Greylock 合伙人),Chad Hurley & Steve Chen (Youtube 创始人),Jeremy Stoppelman (Yelp 创始人),Max Levchin (Affirm 创始人)等。 Zillow:美国最大的房地产买卖平台,2004年成立,2011年上市,市值最高超过400亿美金。 Cased: Github 前CTO 2020年创立的 DevOps 和开发效能平台。 BentoML: 开源机器学习模型部署工具。 Clubhouse: 2020年成立并迅速风靡的语音社交平台(不过现在好像没落了不少……) Alt: 2020年成立的球星卡交易平台 嘉宾推荐的书 What You Do Is Who You Are: How to Create Your Business Culture, by Ben Horowitz Radical Candor: Be a Kick-Ass Boss Without Losing Your Humanity, by Kim Scott Mr. Penumbra's 24-Hour Bookstore, by Robin Sloan 重点词汇 Product market fit:产品市场匹配 NPS: Net Promotor Score, 净推荐值,由美国 Bain Consulting 贡献研发,以一个简单问题,衡量顾客对企业品牌/商品的忠诚度 DAO:Decentralized Autonomous Organization,去中心化自治组织 Metaverse:元宇宙 NFT:Non-Fungible Token,基于区块链技术的非同质化代币 欢迎关注M小姐的微信公众号,了解更多中美企业服务的干货内容! M小姐研习录 (ID: MissMStudy) 大家的点赞、评论、转发是对我们最好的鼓励!希望你分享给对这个话题感兴趣的朋友哦~ 如果你有希望我们聊的话题,希望我们邀请的访谈嘉宾,都欢迎在留言中告诉我们哦! 免责:节目中的观点都是嘉宾和主持人个人观点,不代表所在机构观点,亦不构成任何投资建议。

Prometheus Decoded
Learning from the "Paypal Mafia." Building tech to fix the world. Reasons to be an American optimist, w/ Joe Lonsdale

Prometheus Decoded

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 17, 2022 57:16


Today Ryan Pallotta is talking with the Managing Partner of 8VC, Joe Lonsdale. Joe's a true iconoclast who builds mission-driven companies that use technology to solve inefficiencies and bridge what he calls conceptual gaps. Joe and 8VC led Prometheus' seed round fund-raise, inspired by our platform's mission to close such a gap.   His own podcast is called American Optimist, and the chat begins with Joe laying out what underpins his optimism as challenges appear to be mounting up. Joe describes his upbringing and how various members of the "Paypal Mafia"—Peter Thiel, Keith Rabois, Elon Musk—shaped his worldview when he interned there. He then explains Thiel's role in the founding of data analytics software company Palantir Technologies.  Joe candidly describes his shock at the level of inefficiency and waste he's seen in many areas of government-run projects and why, if this mismanagement can be stopped, we could all be living better lives. Joe and Ryan cover a lot of ground in this podcast. The running theme is possibility. Specifically, the world that is possible when new, innovative, disruptive thinking is paired with experience and expertise. joelonsdale.com americanoptimist.com 8vc.com Download the Prometheus iOS app: apple.co/3C9bPNYUse the Prometheus web app: app.prometheusalts.com

36氪·有识芝士
硅谷资深投资人Keith Rabois:如何成为一个高效的管理者

36氪·有识芝士

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 8, 2022 18:46


World of DaaS
Keith Rabois: Velocity, Differentiation & Disruption

World of DaaS

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 1, 2022 49:00


Keith Rabois is the CEO of Openstore and a general partner at Founders Fund. He's had an amazing career as a founder and senior operator at some of the most innovative companies of the last 20 years, including Paypal, Square, Opendoor, and LinkedIn.Auren and Keith take a deep dive into spotting talent— one of Keith's strengths— and discuss how he's managed to hire so many incredible people over the years. They break down what makes a successful founder, why sitting on “too many” boards is the right move for VCs, and how Keith has reverse engineered a tech scene in Miami.  Keith has a highly unique perspective and brings sharp insight to everything from fundraising to culture to personal health. World of DaaS is brought to you by SafeGraph. For more episodes, visit safegraph.com/podcasts.You can find Auren Hoffman on Twitter at @auren and Keith at @Rabois.

Limited Supply
S2 E2: What Keith Rabois Looks For In Founders

Limited Supply

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 19, 2022 54:50 Very Popular


When you think of big brand investing, you think of Keith Rabois. He gives Nik and Moiz the inside scoop on his investing thesis. Keith Rabois is General Partner at Founders Fund and CEO at OpenStore, providing liquidity to Shopify merchants and integrating them into a decentralized department store. He gets into why he looks for quality and caliber when it comes to investing in founders, why extraordinary people lead to breakthroughs, and why the CEO is ultimately responsible for everything. Growing your business is hard, but Triple Whale is all about scaling your shopify store to the moon and doing it profitably. Use promo code supply15 to get 15% off when you sign up for Triple Whale at http://www.triplewhale.com (www.triplewhale.com) Check out the Nik's DTC newsletter: https://bit.ly/3mOUJMJ (https://bit.ly/3mOUJMJ) Follow Keith:  LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keith (linkedin.com/in/keith) Follow Nik: Twitter: https://twitter.com/mrsharma (twitter.com/mrsharma) Follow Moiz: Twitter: https://twitter.com/moizali (twitter.com/moizali)

Dare to be Legendary by Daversa Partners
Riding the Miami Tech and Talent Wave ft. Keith Rabois, General Partner at Founders Fund

Dare to be Legendary by Daversa Partners

Play Episode Listen Later Oct 6, 2022 26:44


Tenured partner Nicolette Hartman and Keith Rabois, prolific founder, operator, investor, and General Partner at Founders Fund, discuss the tech and talent revolution happening in Miami.

Doppelgänger Tech Talk

Wie war Die Höhle der Löwen mit Diana zur Löwen? Was hat der Opendoor Co-Founder Keith Rabois erzählt? Ab wann sollten man die Rule of 40 bei SaaS Start-ups messen? Könnte eine Mobilitätsapp für Städte funktionieren? Welche Meilensteine muss ein Start-up zu den jeweiligen Funding-Rounds erreichen? Philipp Glöckler (https://twitter.com/gloeckler) und Philipp Klöckner (https://twitter.com/pip_net) sprechen heute über: (00:00:00) Small Talk (00:01:15) 30 Minuten Apotheke (00:05:00) DHDL (00:12:35) Opendoor (00:50:30) Rule of 40 für kleinere Startups (00:55:00) Mobility App (01:00:15) Funding Meilensteine Shownotes: Höhle der Löwen Tweet: https://twitter.com/gloeckler/status/1574650735375003648 150 Business Angels: https://www.addedval.io/business-angels-liste-die-150-aktivsten-angels/ Opendoor Co-Founder Keith Rabois im Fernsehen https://twitter.com/dee_bosa/status/1573371849735835648 Opendoor Slides: https://www.opendoor.com/w/wp-content/uploads/2020/09/Opendoor-overview-investor-presentation.pdf Rule of 40 Tweet: https://twitter.com/onlycfo/status/1571529851517177861 What does it take to raise capital, in SaaS, in 2022? https://medium.com/point-nine-news/what-does-it-take-to-raise-capital-in-saas-in-2022-7ebe55c86e3e The B2B Marketplace Funding Napkin 2022 https://medium.com/point-nine-news/the-b2b-marketplace-funding-napkin-2022-f3f863f20c50 **Doppelgänger Tech Talk Podcast** Doppelgänger & Friends auf Twitch https://www.twitch.tv/doppelgaengerio Sheet https://doppelgaenger.io/sheet/ Earnings & Event Kalender https://www.doppelgaenger.io/kalender/ Disclaimer https://www.doppelgaenger.io/disclaimer/ Passionfroot Storefront https://www.passionfroot.xyz/storefront/doppelgaenger Post Production by Jan Wagener https://twitter.com/JanAusDemOff

The One Percent Project
Episode 51: Peter Wang- Being a CTO

The One Percent Project

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 25, 2022 32:04


About Peter Wang:"Program maintenance is an entropy-increasing process, and even its most skillful execution only delays the subsidence of the system into unfixable obsolescence." — Frederick P. Brooks Jr., The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software Engineering, 1975. Simple put, all it means is once you build software and keep making changes to it. Its quality will degrade and eventually degrade to a point where it becomes unusable. Today on The One Percent Project, I am speaking to Peter Wang. Peter is the Chief Technology Officer at Buzzfeed, overseeing Product Management, Engineering, Design, and Data teams across all portfolio brands. Peter has built both consumer and enterprise products and fundraised from a diverse range of investors across industries—health (The Mighty, backed by GGVC, Upfront, and WPP Health), SaaS (Buddy Media, backed by Greylock, acquired by Salesforce), media & e-commerce (Refinery29, backed by Stripes, WPP, Scripps).Peter, in this conversation, talks about his journey as a CTO, leadership vs management, and his delegation mechanism, which Keith Rabois outlined in his essay How to be an effective executive and what has been learnt as an angel investor. Some Key Highlights:Buddy Media was acquired by Salesforce. I remember being there after it was acquired by Salesforce. And I realized that what we have built wasn't particularly the most technologically robust advanced futuristic version of it. but it was a combination of the right set of capabilities slash features that the clients need combined with the right marketing.Emotion has so much more decision-making power than we even understand.Culture is based on identity. Culture is based on values. Culture is embedded into our decision-making, even though we cannot articulate or quantify it when we talk to people.In this conversation, she talks about:00:00 Intro02:13 How does one know the role they play beyond their title?04:56 Leadership Vs Management is there a difference?06:30 As a CTO, how do you build an intelligent and practical system without being too futuristic?10:32 Delegation: Your views?13:56 Is there a difference between a CTO and a VP of engineering?17:24 90-day plan, when you kick start in a new role. The 3 Ps- Double-click on that.21:42 Is technology the secret sauce of Buzz Feed's success?24:58 What can data not do?29:38 What have you learnt as an angel investor?Links:The Mythical Man-Month: Essays on Software EngineeringKeith Rabois Essay 3: How to be an Effective Executive

TechCrunch
Daily Crunch 9/23/22

TechCrunch

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 23, 2022 3:54 Very Popular


Google's new Chromecast costs $30 — and it has a remote; SoftBank cuts internal valuation of $10 billion Oyo to $2.7 billion; Keith Rabois' OpenStore bags new funding as valuation soars to $970M

Paradigm Shift
EP29: Keith Rabois on navigating the downturn, developing good judgement, and building an iconic company

Paradigm Shift

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 8, 2022 35:20


Keith is a Silicon Valley legend— an accomplished operator, founder, and investor. He started his career as an early executive at PayPal, LinkedIn and Square, before going on to co-found companies like OpenDoor (which IPO'd in 2020) and OpenStore.He's currently a General Partner at Founders Fund and Co-Founder/CEO of OpenStore. Along the way, he's made incredible investments as an angel and VC in companies like DoorDash, Affirm, Stripe, YouTube, Palantir, Airbnb, Ramp, Faire, and many more.In this conversation we ask questions that span three broad areas: how to grow through a downturn, how to develop good judgement, and how to build an iconic company.This episode is packed with incredible insights and actionable advice from Keith. We hope you enjoy this conversation, and learn as much from it as we did.In this episode we discuss:Growing through a downturn Given the current market correction underway, what do you think happens next?What advice do you have for founders starting companies in this market context?You've said you believe the best companies are built in the public markets. What do you think needs to happen for more companies to go public within 4-6 years vs 10-15 years?What do you think is the right time (or maturity level) for a company to go public?Developing good judgement You have been extremely successfully at investing super early. What has been your approach to making investments when it's just a team and a keynote deck?You've talked about how you look for a “spark” when making early-stage investments. Could you describe a time you've seen that? What has it looked like?Could you share some examples where things have not gone well and how you've approached those situations?How have you honed your skill in evaluating people and opportunities, and what advice do you have for someone trying to improve their own judgement?How much overlap do you think there is between the skills used to hire and the skills used to evaluate a founder? How do you approach assessing people in both those contexts?Building an iconic company You've seen a lot of companies navigate the path to product-market fit. What approaches you've seen work particularly well? What has been your own approach to getting to PMF?Post PMF, how do you think about the trade-off between growth and efficiency? Do you think the current market context changes the traditional blitz-scaling strategy?When evaluating investment opportunities, to what extent are you thematically driven vs opportunistically driven?You've talked about how people often don't map their time to their priorities well. As a VC and an operator, how do you approach setting priorities and what does that look like on a week-to-week basis?How have you approached coaching/helping founders and new managers/executives better prioritize their time towards the highest leverage activities?Closeout questions What is the most challenging/difficult feedback you've received — how have you processed it and incorporated it going forward?What are your superpowers that you find yourself leaning on often?Anything you're reading right now that you'd recommend?LinksFollow Keith, Founders Fund and OpenStore on TwitterHit subscribe to keep up with new episodes!Follow Ashish and Zane on Twitter for summariesClick here to share feedback — it only takes a minute

Paradigm Shift
EP29: Keith Rabois on navigating the downturn, developing good judgement, and building an iconic company

Paradigm Shift

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 8, 2022 35:20


Keith is a Silicon Valley legend— an accomplished operator, founder, and investor. He started his career as an early executive at PayPal, LinkedIn and Square, before going on to co-found companies like OpenDoor (which IPO'd in 2020) and OpenStore.He's currently a General Partner at Founders Fund and Co-Founder/CEO of OpenStore. Along the way, he's made incredible investments as an angel and VC in companies like DoorDash, Affirm, Stripe, YouTube, Palantir, Airbnb, Ramp, Faire, and many more.In this conversation we ask questions that span three broad areas: how to grow through a downturn, how to develop good judgement, and how to build an iconic company.This episode is packed with incredible insights and actionable advice from Keith. We hope you enjoy this conversation, and learn as much from it as we did.In this episode we discuss:Growing through a downturn Given the current market correction underway, what do you think happens next?What advice do you have for founders starting companies in this market context?You've said you believe the best companies are built in the public markets. What do you think needs to happen for more companies to go public within 4-6 years vs 10-15 years?What do you think is the right time (or maturity level) for a company to go public?Developing good judgement You have been extremely successfully at investing super early. What has been your approach to making investments when it's just a team and a keynote deck?You've talked about how you look for a “spark” when making early-stage investments. Could you describe a time you've seen that? What has it looked like?Could you share some examples where things have not gone well and how you've approached those situations?How have you honed your skill in evaluating people and opportunities, and what advice do you have for someone trying to improve their own judgement?How much overlap do you think there is between the skills used to hire and the skills used to evaluate a founder? How do you approach assessing people in both those contexts?Building an iconic company You've seen a lot of companies navigate the path to product-market fit. What approaches you've seen work particularly well? What has been your own approach to getting to PMF?Post PMF, how do you think about the trade-off between growth and efficiency? Do you think the current market context changes the traditional blitz-scaling strategy?When evaluating investment opportunities, to what extent are you thematically driven vs opportunistically driven?You've talked about how people often don't map their time to their priorities well. As a VC and an operator, how do you approach setting priorities and what does that look like on a week-to-week basis?How have you approached coaching/helping founders and new managers/executives better prioritize their time towards the highest leverage activities?Closeout questions What is the most challenging/difficult feedback you've received — how have you processed it and incorporated it going forward?What are your superpowers that you find yourself leaning on often?Anything you're reading right now that you'd recommend?LinksFollow Keith, Founders Fund and OpenStore on TwitterHit subscribe to keep up with new episodes!Follow Ashish and Zane on Twitter for summariesClick here to share feedback — it only takes a minute

Podcast Notes Playlist: Latest Episodes
#1025 Keith Rabois On The Critical Thinking Crises That's Underway

Podcast Notes Playlist: Latest Episodes

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 10, 2022 51:35


Pomp Podcast Keith Rabois is a General Partner at Founders Fund, A member of the "Paypal Mafia" and has helped build and invest in multiple billion dollar companies. This audio podcast was pulled from my live event with Keith Rabois at Showfields in Miami, Florida. In this conversation, we talk about the frameworks around critical thinking, including how it's done, changing your mind on closely held beliefs, and the downsides to having so much conviction. We also discuss the macro economy and other current events such as Covid, gun control, Bitcoin and geopolitics. To see the full video interview of my chat with Keith, go to my Anthony Pompliano YouTube Channel. ======================= FTX.US is the safe, regulated way to buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital assets. Trade crypto with up to 85% lower fees than top competitors. There are no fixed minimum fees, no ACH transaction fees, and no withdrawal fees.   FTX.US is also the only leading exchange that supports both Ethereum and Solana NFTs.   Download the FTX App today and use referral code “Pomp” to earn free crypto on every trade over $10. The more you trade, the more you earn. ======================== BCB Group is the leading payment services partner for the digital assets industry. BCB Group provides payment services in 30+ currencies, FX, cryptocurrency liquidity, digital asset custody and BLINC, which is BCB's free, instant settlements network for the BCB client ecosystem. Find out more by visiting bcbgroup.com/pomp ======================= Brave Wallet is the first secure crypto wallet built natively in a web3 crypto browser. No extension required. Store, manage, and grow your portfolio, get NFT & multi-chain support, and more.    Download the Brave privacy browser at brave.com/Pomp, and click the wallet icon to get started. =======================

The Megyn Kelly Show
Free Speech Suppression, and a Culture Leading to Mass Shootings, with Keith Rabois and John Kass | Ep. 351

The Megyn Kelly Show

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 6, 2022 73:20 Very Popular


Megyn Kelly is joined by Keith Rabois, entrepreneur, investor, and partner at Founders Fund, to talk about Twitter's suppression of free speech, what Elon Musk's management might be like, China's data collection through TikTok, the national security implications of TikTok, coming out the closet as a conservative, the decline of Silicon Valley, California as a "third world country" now and Gov. Gavin Newsom's political ambitions, Trump vs. DeSantis, whether Biden is too old, why Biden's policies have led to higher gas prices, making the jump from law into tech entrepreneurship, and more. Then, John Kass of JohnKassNews.com joins the show to talk about the July 4th shooting in Illinois, coverage of gun crime in Highland Park vs. gun crime in Chicago, what's in our culture that's leading to more mass shootings, the value of shame to inspire better behavior, the need for families to do more, and more.Follow The Megyn Kelly Show on all social platforms: YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/MegynKellyTwitter: http://Twitter.com/MegynKellyShowInstagram: http://Instagram.com/MegynKellyShowFacebook: http://Facebook.com/MegynKellyShow Find out more information at: https://www.devilmaycaremedia.com/megynkellyshow

The #MiamiTech Pod
EP 68 | Keith Rabois' Key To Happiness: Miami

The #MiamiTech Pod

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 4, 2022 39:04


On this episode the hosts chat with entrepreneur, investor and contrarian, Keith Rabois of Founders Fund.Topics on deck:- Insight into Keith as an operator in tech's biggest companies- State of VC - Secret to Keith's happiness: MiamiFollow the Hosts:@BrianBreslin@CFernandezFL@MariaDerchi@WillWeinraubFollow the guest:@Rabois@foundersfundwww.foundersfund.comThanks for listening! Please Like + Subscribe + Rate + Review!

Three Cartoon Avatars
EP 23: Non-Crypto Talk with Zach Weinberg plus Interview with Acquired Podcast's Ben Gilbert and David Rosenthal

Three Cartoon Avatars

Play Episode Listen Later Jul 1, 2022 141:50 Very Popular


Time Stamps:(1:18) Introducing Zach Weinberg(2:44) Web2 celebrity status(7:22) Frozen tech market(10:33) Investor perspective(14:06) Current market state(25:07) Advising founders(34:24) Bill Magnuson Story(38:13) Founder characteristics)(42:37) Zach vs Keith Rabois(49:13) Acquired FM intro(50:09) Acquired FM history(1:04:43) The state of podcasts(1:08:48) Logan's backstory(1:23:52) Creating episodes(1:33:55) Three priorities of Acquired(1:46:28) Acquired's best moments(1:49:10) Production process(1:54:36) Increasing blast radius(2:00:29 State of venture(2:08:14) The Tiger/SoftBank approach(2:17:37) Parting thoughts  Links:Keith Rabois – Barrels and Ammunition clip - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75fyGOBy38c-Zach Weinberg vs Keith Rabois - https://medium.com/@KirbyAWallace/fact-checking-a-vcs-tweets-about-covid-19-clinical-trials-86cdef1b0ff4-Acquired FM - https://www.acquired.fm/

Off the Chain
#1025 Keith Rabois On The Critical Thinking Crises That's Underway

Off the Chain

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 29, 2022 51:35 Very Popular


Keith Rabois is a General Partner at Founders Fund, A member of the "Paypal Mafia" and has helped build and invest in multiple billion dollar companies. This audio podcast was pulled from my live event with Keith Rabois at Showfields in Miami, Florida. In this conversation, we talk about the frameworks around critical thinking, including how it's done, changing your mind on closely held beliefs, and the downsides to having so much conviction. We also discuss the macro economy and other current events such as Covid, gun control, Bitcoin and geopolitics. To see the full video interview of my chat with Keith, go to my Anthony Pompliano YouTube Channel. ======================= FTX.US is the safe, regulated way to buy and sell Bitcoin and other digital assets. Trade crypto with up to 85% lower fees than top competitors. There are no fixed minimum fees, no ACH transaction fees, and no withdrawal fees.   FTX.US is also the only leading exchange that supports both Ethereum and Solana NFTs.   Download the FTX App today and use referral code “Pomp” to earn free crypto on every trade over $10. The more you trade, the more you earn. ======================== BCB Group is the leading payment services partner for the digital assets industry. BCB Group provides payment services in 30+ currencies, FX, cryptocurrency liquidity, digital asset custody and BLINC, which is BCB's free, instant settlements network for the BCB client ecosystem. Find out more by visiting bcbgroup.com/pomp ======================= Brave Wallet is the first secure crypto wallet built natively in a web3 crypto browser. No extension required. Store, manage, and grow your portfolio, get NFT & multi-chain support, and more.    Download the Brave privacy browser at brave.com/Pomp, and click the wallet icon to get started. =======================

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: The Memo: Bill Gurley, Doug Leone, Keith Rabois; Investing Lessons from Prior Busts, How Their Investor Psychology Changed, What Can Be Applied To Today's Market

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 29, 2022 26:32


Bill Gurley is a General Partner @ Benchmark Capital, Bill, is widely recognized as one of the greats of our time having worked with the likes of GrubHub, NextDoor, Uber, OpenTable, Stitch Fix, and Zillow. Doug Leone is the Global Managing Partner @ Sequoia Capital, one of the world's most renowned and successful venture firms with a portfolio including the likes of Google, Airbnb, Whatsapp, Stripe, Zoom and many more. Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the best performing funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Stripe, Anduril, the list goes on.  Arthur Patterson and Jim Swartz founded Accel in 1983. Under their leadership, they have built Accel into one of the most prominent venture firms of the last 4 decades. Michael Eisenberg is a Co-Founder and Equal Partner @ Aleph, with a portfolio including the likes of Lemonade, Melio and HoneyBook, they are one of the leading early-stage firms of the last decade. Sonali De Rycker is a Partner @ Accel, one of the leading firms of the last 3 decades with a portfolio that includes the likes of UiPath, Miro, Spotify and many more incredible companies. Fabrice Grinda is the Founding Partner @ FJ Labs, with over 700 investments, Fabrice has had over 250 exits and built a portfolio including Alibaba, Coupang, Airbnb, Instacart, Flexport, and many more. In Today's Episode You Will Learn: 1.) How does the current environment compare to prior busts? 2.) How will the changing interest rates impact the startup funding climate moving forward? 3.) Why is the rate of inflation the only true metric which reveals the ultimate fate of the economy? 4.) What are the world's leading investors telling their founders? 5.) How are the best investors in the world thinking through reserves management?

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots
427: BrainStation with Johanna Mikkola

Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 16, 2022 41:22


Johanna Mikkola is the Co-Founder and CEO of Wyncode Academy, recently acquired by BrainStation, whose project-based programs have helped over 100,000 professionals launch new careers in the tech industry. Chad talks with Johanna about creating a digital skills training bootcamp, the hiring and training market and challenges, and prioritizing inclusion and diversity in the student population. BrainStation (https://brainstation.io/) Follow BrainStation on Twitter (https://twitter.com/brainstation), Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/BrainStation), Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/brainstation/), or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/school/brainstation/). Follow Johanna on Twitter (https://twitter.com/JoMikkola) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/in/johanna-mikkola/). Follow thoughtbot on Twitter (https://twitter.com/thoughtbot) or LinkedIn (https://www.linkedin.com/company/150727/). Become a Sponsor (https://thoughtbot.com/sponsorship) of Giant Robots! Transcript: CHAD: This is the Giant Robots Smashing Into Other Giant Robots Podcast, where we explore the design, development, and business of great products. And with me today is Jo Mikkola, the Co-Founder, and CEO of Wyncode Academy, recently acquired by BrainStation, whose project-based programs have helped over 100,000 professionals launch new careers in the tech industry. Jo, thank you for joining me. JOHANNA: So excited to be here. Thank you. CHAD: I actually think that the weather we're calling from today might not be so different. It's very warm and sunny, and everything in Boston. So I'm pretty happy today. How are things where you are? JOHANNA: That's great. We're coming to you live from the 305 in Miami, and it's turning into summertime here, which means it's pretty hot and sticky. But I'm originally from Finland, so I can't complain. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: The novelty after eight years of living here has not worn off on me. I do enjoy the sunshine and the palm trees. CHAD: That's great. So we'll definitely circle back and talk about Miami and the tech industry there and everything. But before we do that, I'm curious; you have recently been acquired by BrainStation. Let's rewind a little bit to getting started with Wyncode and what brought you to creating a digital skills training bootcamp. JOHANNA: It's been quite the journey. It all started back in 2013, and at the time living in Toronto. I, at that point, had been working at the National Hockey League in Toronto for eight years and had just joined the management there on the hockey operations officiating team, which was an amazing chapter of my professional journey, and I love all the individuals that I worked with there. But I got to a point in that career where I didn't quite know what the next step would be professionally, and I was looking at getting an MBA. But at the same time, while I was working at the NHL, I was helping lead an internal software build project. And it kept coming to the forefront for me that wow, hockey is being disrupted by technology or technology is being very integrated into something I thought, you know, I didn't think I would see that happen. And at the same time, my co-founder, who's also my husband, we're both from Finland. His name is Juha. He was an entrepreneur in the e-commerce sporting goods space, and he actually had joined a coding bootcamp in Toronto, an early one. And as he was going through the process, we were both kind of at this inflection point professionally about what we were going to do. And so everything he was learning, the transformation of individuals he was witnessing first-hand, him experiencing that himself, and me being a non-technical business person leading a technical project at the NHL, we were like, wow, we're on the cusp of some serious change in the world, and we want to be part of that wave. So we were like, where can we go and be first to market to provide this life-changing, career-changing education and, in turn, really dive into not only education but also the technology space? And ultimately, we landed on Miami. We had actually looked at Austin, Texas, and Los Angeles as options as well. But we arrived here in Miami, and it was very like a Hollywood thing. We were sitting at the coolest cafe in Miami at the time. We were here on Christmas holiday. And we, on a napkin, started writing ideas and brainstorming. You know, founders get very excited about logos and brainstorming names, or at least I do. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: And it all came together really quickly. That was December 2013. We attended a startup meet-up here. We met four key players in this ecosystem, some of which are major drivers today, like the Knight Foundation and Endeavor. We heard their vision, and what they were doing, and how much funding was being put at the time into building a tech ecosystem in Miami. And we were like, wow, we want in. So we went from concept to launch in three months' time. And it was a pretty exciting ride. I mean, so much happened in that time [laughs], and obviously, the acquisition came early last year. And so we've kind of seen it go full circle. And for me professionally, I went from being a startup founder working very regionally, being somewhat nationally known but being a strong regional player, to being a global player overnight with BrainStation. So that also has been really exciting. CHAD: At thoughtbot, we helped create a web development bootcamp around the same time actually. JOHANNA: Love that. CHAD: And that was for Kaplan, and they ended up purchasing Dev Bootcamp and then shutting it down. So I have some experience, and not only that, but thoughtbot has hired a lot of people from bootcamps into our apprentice program. JOHANNA: Love that. CHAD: So, from a hiring and training perspective, I think it's great. From a business perspective, it seems to have been a very challenging market. How did you weather that? JOHANNA: Oh yeah. I mean persistence, unwavering commitment to the people we worked with, and the people we were helping gain these skills to change their careers. And like with any startup, there are moments where it's like, wow, you know, this is a big challenge. How are we going to overcome this? But we've always had the mentality of if there is a will, there is a way. And don't get me wrong, it doesn't always work out. But fortunately, now that I have hindsight, I can say that that mentality resulted in where we are today, and it was very positive. And I have the really fortunate position of looking back on those stressful moments and seeing the lessons now, which is such a gift and maybe also alludes to me being old, I don't know. [laughter] But it really was a great journey. And I mean, the challenges started in the beginning for us, which is turns out it was a federal offense to operate without a license in the state of Florida, you know, lots of details to talk about there. But come full circle, we ended up being the first coding bootcamp to be licensed by a State Department of Education in the entire country. So even though other people were operating in their states, it was different statutes, different legal requirements. And so, we were the first to be licensed. And as a result, we actually helped advise some of those other big names that we all see in the coding landscape to explain how it worked for us. And shout out to the Florida Department of Education and Commission for Independent Education for working with us to make it all come together. But it started off with a very exciting beginning getting that letter, which was essentially telling us to shut down before we had even begun. [laughter] And it all worked out. And we have a great relationship with them. And we learned a lot there. And I will say just in the coding landscape, what ended up happening and what's happened with a lot of for-profit education is there was a huge opportunity, and there still is. People really genuinely need these skills. They really need this vocational training, and the companies hiring really need this talent, as you know firsthand. And so a lot of people jumped in and saw that there was money to be made because professionals and maybe also people who can afford it...there are a lot of financing companies that came in. And so the thing that started wavering is the quality in terms of the training. And that's one of the things that you just, you know, one of the things we were unwilling to compromise at Wyncode and also why BrainStation, I like to say, is our soulmate because they feel the same way. To go from zero to software engineer or zero to UX designer (We also teach data science and digital marketing.), it really takes high-quality education, high-quality educators, and a high-quality network to do that at the level that we want to do that. And then the other thing that a lot of people fell into is this desire to scale really quickly, so take in too many students which quality goes down, open too many locations, quality goes down. And to be the best, you got to learn from the best, and that means learning from software engineers, product designers, individuals who are really highly sought after right now. So, in the same way that software companies are facing talent issues, for us, that was also a key piece for us to solve and work out. We're really fortunate that in the space of education, this is such rewarding work. We build such amazing relationships with the people coming through the programs and, in turn, are contributing so much to our local ecosystems that it hasn't been that hard to attract amazing talent to be our educators because it is so rewarding. They're getting an opportunity to apply their craft to something they love and really shape the minds of future technologists. And it's just a wonderful thing to watch and be part of, so really fortunate to be in that space. CHAD: Correct me if I'm wrong, but I think that's one of the things that has made the space challenging is you come into it with the desire to have that really high quality, but there's a cost to that. And if you don't scale the number of students, you might have trouble covering that cost. How did you balance that? JOHANNA: In the early days of Wyncode, it was easy because we were self-funded, and we were growing organically. So we were quite conservative about how we scaled and how many people we took on, and we stayed very true to that. And honestly, we stayed very focused on the state of Florida. So at one point, we actually had three locations; we had Miami Beach, Fort Lauderdale, and Miami, and we scaled them down to have a large HQ in Miami. Because we saw that when the team was together, and the community was together, the overall experience from network to learning was better because we were self-funded. And then, later, when we had partners who were committed to quality, we were able to make decisions for the sake of quality instead of profitability. And then now with BrainStation, I mean, BrainStation is an incredible company. It's been around for ten years. It has been very successful. And right now, what we've been able to do is invest. BrainStation is in a position where we're investing in different pilots to see what things will make learning even better than it already is, although I will say it's at a really high quality right now. And so we're in a fortunate position where, of course, it still needs to make sense. The unit economics needs to make sense. But we're also doing everything we can to continually iterate and make it a great environment for people to learn in. And I think that has come with taking the approach that we're in a long-term marathon. We're not in a sprint with what we're building right now. And I think a lot of the companies in this space that ran into issues were really sprinting to a certain scale, which is a way of operating that we haven't operated. CHAD: Well, so based on what you've said so far, I can make certain assumptions about how you answer this next question. JOHANNA: [laughs] CHAD: But I think it's an important topic, and so I want to make sure even if it's obvious that we talk about it and that's how to bring in students, how to scale the business while still prioritizing inclusion and diversity in the student population, in your organization. What sort of attention did you put on that? JOHANNA: Yeah, so this is a really key one. I mean, in the early days of Wyncode, we were able to do things in a different way than we are now with BrainStation. But I would say Miami is naturally a very diverse and international ecosystem. And so, from the beginning, we really wanted to see that reflected in the people who were in our programs because I knew that would, in the long term, provide so much value to building a great ecosystem. And so, in the beginning, we partnered...we worked very hard to partner with The Knight Foundation to launch what was called The Future Leaders of Tech Fellowship. This is an example of something we did with different groups throughout all the years and continue to do today, but I'll use Knight as the example, which essentially was a full-ride scholarship for underrepresented individuals in technology. So the first iteration we ran of that was a full-ride scholarship because we thought that was the main barrier. Then we realized that a lot of these individuals who hadn't had the means before and didn't necessarily have the educational training needed a little extra training, and they needed to start working right away. So what we created was a pre-program for them. It was a full-ride scholarship, and then it was a guaranteed three-month paid internship at a tech company. And of all the people who went through that program, the majority transitioned, with the exception of two, transitioned into full-time salaried roles. And those are incredible stories that are truly life-changing. But I think the important thing there and what we learned over time is people need support, financial and educational, and they need time. So obviously, in an accelerated learning program, you want things to go as quickly as possible but through the help of partners and making it work for certain communities, we were able to do that. We also partnered with the YMW...it's the Women's...YMCA for women. I cannot remember the acronym right now. CHAD: WYMCA. JOHANNA: Thank you. Thank you. We provided a program in-house for them specifically. CHAD: No, it would be the YWCA. [laughter] JOHANNA: Yeah. CHAD: Sorry to interrupt you. JOHANNA: I'm sorry. I'm not doing you all a good service here. But it's an amazing organization here in Miami. And that was geared specifically towards women from disadvantaged backgrounds, giving them the education they needed. And with that group, we had actually a 70% success rate, which was wonderful. Those are individuals who had no options for any type of white-collar position, many of whom we still keep in touch with today. So, in the beginning, with diversity and inclusion, we were doing things at a smaller scale, very specialized, and very catered to make sure that they were successful in the hope of eventually building more momentum to do this. And the work very much continues. So BrainStation, larger company, we have a lot more firepower in terms of what we're able to do. So we've partnered with companies like Ernst & Young, Shutterstock, Microsoft with our Impact Scholarship, which is also full-ride scholarships for the underrepresented communities in technology, and that's been really successful as well. And, again, education is really rewarding, but it's also really rewarding to see, in particular, those success stories. CHAD: Yeah, one of the things when I speak at bootcamps or when I talk to apprentices who are joining us, I often reinforce or remind them that they bring something to the table, which is really special. I started programming when I was in middle school. I went to school for computer science. Aside from a brief stint as a dishwasher and a checkout person at a grocery store, this is all I've ever done. And I recognize that that has pros and cons. Like, I just don't have the same perspective and diversity of experience, let alone actual demographic diversity that many of our team members bring to the table. And there's something special in that, whether it be from your experience working in another industry like hospitality or something like that. You bring a perspective. There are so many hospitality startups, for example, that would love to bring a new developer onto their team who actually has industry experience. It makes it very powerful for people. JOHANNA: Yeah, absolutely. And I think oftentimes, people in anything when you're transitioning a career, there's maybe a little bit of imposter syndrome or a lack of confidence. And I see oftentimes not only minority groups but everyone shying away from their previous professional backgrounds. But technology is built for us, for humans who are very diverse in background experience and the products and services that we need. And so we really try to emphasize at Wyncode and at BrainStation to lean into your past profession. Because if you can bring that through and really focus on the things you learn there, you can provide so much firepower to what you're building with technology, and it's super important. And I will say healthtech is big in South Florida. And so we have had various people with some type of health background, whether they were an assistant or worked in a medical office, or we've had a few doctors go through the program. They were, as you can imagine, really sought after for the healthtech companies because not only do they bring technology skills, but they have this understanding that no one else does. So it's really unique. CHAD: You're part of the tech industry now. [laughter] How has that diversity of background...you mentioned at the beginning, at the top of the episode that you were originally at the NHL, to starting to lead software projects there. How have you leveraged that for yourself and for your business? JOHANNA: Oh yeah, 100%. So we do an exercise at BrainStation where you have a chart, and you plot out your past professions, and you look at the things that you learned, and the mistakes you made, and the things you didn't like, to start to build a thread of what are things carrying over? And for me, the thing that has come to the forefront is technology or not...and I feel like anyone investing is also saying this all the time, and maybe founders say it too. But it always comes down to people and relationships and how you are listening and taking in the information to then digest it and deliver something. And so, I think my ability to connect with people and mobilize people around common goals is something that has been a common thread throughout my career. It's interesting. I'll say some of the best things I learned as a founder came from engineers, the first being agile. Like, we weren't operating like an agile company in the beginning because we weren't a software company. And our very first hire was a guy named Ed Toro, an MIT graduate. Shout out to Ed. It's actually his birthday. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: Incredible, incredible engineer originally from Boston. He was our lead educator for software for so long. And he just brought so much knowledge to us about how software is built and works. And we integrated that into how we operated as business people and organized the company. I mean, it's amazing. I actually don't remember what it's like to not be organized in that manner anymore. Although I can tell you going from the NHL to Wyncode was a huge jump because NHL, even though we were using and leveraging technology, was still organized very traditionally. And so I'll give you a simple thing, some software teams...I know a lot of software engineers appreciate transparency. So, in addition to organizing in a very agile method in terms of how we operated the business, we also pivoted to be extremely transparent as a team as well in terms of how the company is doing, which is something that is not common in a multibillion-dollar industry like the NHL. Although you see that more and more with tech companies, which is interesting. CHAD: How long ago did you join up with BrainStation? JOHANNA: So we were introduced to the founders and owners of BrainStation really because they were potentially looking at coming to Florida. And a mutual friend, a mutual business person, had said, "Hey, you know, if you guys are looking at Florida, probably you guys should meet Jo and Juha. They built something called Wyncode. You're going to get to know them anyway." And so I would say a little bit over a year and a half ago, we started chatting. And we realized that we had a lot in common in terms of how we had built the businesses, where we wanted to see the business go. And the rest isn't history because we're a year and a half in. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: So you know what happened. It all worked out. It's really great but also really excited for the future. Because now with the BrainStation acquisition comes a lot of firepower in terms of experience on the team, much larger team, capital, reach of team. We have students in over 100 countries. So I'm very excited for what we're going to do in the future as well because we can have so much more impact, and that is really exciting as well. Mid-Roll Ad: I wanted to tell you all about something I've been working on quietly for the past year or so, and that's AgencyU. AgencyU is a membership-based program where I work one-on-one with a small group of agency founders and leaders toward their business goals. We do one-on-one coaching sessions and also monthly group meetings. We start with goal setting, advice, and problem-solving based on my experiences over the last 18 years of running thoughtbot. As we progress as a group, we all get to know each other more. And many of the AgencyU members are now working on client projects together and even referring work to each other. Whether you're struggling to grow an agency, taking it to the next level and having growing pains, or a solo founder who just needs someone to talk to, in my 18 years of leading and growing thoughtbot, I've seen and learned from a lot of different situations, and I'd be happy to work with you. Learn more and sign up today at thoughtbot.com/agencyu. That's A-G-E-N-C-Y, the letter U. CHAD: You mentioned before you had a very Florida-specific focus previously. Is part of this next stage to be working across BrainStation and really working more globally? JOHANNA: Yeah, so working regionally with a focus on South Florida but with the know-how and the resources of a global team for sure. And being on the senior leadership team here, I am still 100% focused on Florida, but I get to have perspective from all the other markets. We have five campuses in New York, Toronto, Vancouver, London, and now Miami. So that's very interesting. And I have to say, when we were running Wyncode, we were always like, man, I wonder, how it's going in New York? CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: Or I wonder how it's going in Vancouver. Well, now I know. So it is really interesting because it also gives you not only a perspective in terms of bootcamps and how that's going but also a perspective on those ecosystems and how the tech companies there are growing and hiring. Because we're at that really interesting spot where we always know everyone's closed a round of funding because they go on a hiring spree. And then we see the bigger companies who are continually hiring. So we always kind of have a little bit of a pulse on what's going on in all of the ecosystems. And also really, before, we were primarily American students in the southeast, but now as BrainStation, I mean, it's global. So seeing how different everyone is but also still so similar in terms of their end goals and collaborative, it's really special. And yeah, it's been great. CHAD: So you have the campuses, the geographic locations, and then you have the global students. Are they in different silos, or do the two groups of students interact with each other at all? JOHANNA: Yeah, great question. So we do execute our..., and we call them diploma programs for the bootcamp programs, both online and in person. So as you can imagine, students in over 100 countries we're executing in all the time zones because of online delivery. But much of that, if they're outside of the geographic region of one of our campuses, they're likely an online student. CHAD: Are they being taught by an instructor in one of the campuses, or is it a separate thing? JOHANNA: Yeah, our educators are located in our campuses geographically. CHAD: How did the pandemic change or not change the experience of students, and what you needed to offer? JOHANNA: Wyncode, at the time, we were still Wyncode when the pandemic hit. I'll never forget having an all-hands meeting in our conference room and being like, hey...it was a Thursday. We're like, come Monday; we're going fully remote. We weren't a remote educator at that time. Everybody needs special permissions and licenses to also have remote teaching, which most governments made exceptions for because of the pandemic. So we were all good there. But we were thinking at the time, oh, maybe it'll be a month. Well, two years later, we're just about to have our grand reopening of the space in Miami. Our other campuses have already opened. And it was pretty exciting. When the pandemic hit, there was definitely an oh no moment. Like, people paused their enrollments, understandably. That was March. But as we got into early summer, we actually saw enrollment skyrocket. So huge success was pivoting to go remote. We were very fortunate that we had a pretty seasoned senior team on our software and UX side. And they had been through the world of remote learning and just being on tech, you know, Yahoo, Google. They had worked at Yahoo, Google, so they knew remote, and they were able to help us and bring that expertise. So the transition to remote was easy. And then we got all these students. And actually, that started a wave which has continued to this day of really people having an appetite for online learning and continuing to want to pivot careers into technology, both out of individuals' interests for technology but also because of the demand. So the pandemic was terrible. Business-wise for sure, there have been challenges, but there have, I would say, been a lot more successes and opportunities as a result of the pandemic. And for me personally as an entrepreneur, the pandemic got us, you know, we were doing well and having a lot of success, so the pandemic also got us on the radar for BrainStation. We started that conversation, and that was really exciting. And, again, here we are as a global educator now. CHAD: I've talked to a lot of people and seen it in our applications as well, like, it was really two things: people losing their jobs because of the pandemic and then getting that opportunity to take a look around and say, you know what? I'm not going back to that industry, and I want to learn to code. And then a lot of other people saying, you know, sort of the great resignation kind of stuff saying like, I want to change and actively switching as well. And you can see it in our applications the number of switchers, the number of people who have taken the last year, year and a half to do a remote bootcamp and make a career transition. It was always high. It's even higher now. JOHANNA: Yeah, totally agree, like, very respective of what we see as well. And we've had a great relationship with CareerSource South Florida as well. And they fund workforce transformation. And so initially in the pandemic...we're not seeing those layoffs now, but initially, a lot of those people who were getting laid off many of them were able to qualify for CareerSource as well, which also really fueled people's ability to take part in this education. And South Florida is interesting. I think 65% of the workforce before the pandemic...a lot has changed. Tech has moved in, a lot of big names have moved in. But before the pandemic, 65% of people professionally here were working in hospitality or real estate so it was definitely a big pivot for some people to go into the direction of technology. CHAD: That's great to hear that they were able to be helped by that because that can be a big impediment to this. I believe that the cost of an average bootcamp for what you actually get and for the impact it can have on your salary or your compensation is worth it. But if you can't afford the tuition, then it's a non-starter. JOHANNA: Yeah, yeah, exactly. And then it goes without saying, but there are some people...there are a lot of opportunities. There are a lot of jobs. There are a lot of ways to get in, but it doesn't mean that it's for everyone. And I think for us, some of the work that's required to get into the program in our admissions process and our advisors who spend a lot of time with people considering this are also helping people guide this thought process of what they go into and what they're going to do to decide if it's the right direction for them. And I think ultimately, the large majority who come in have done good research and good work and have really thought it through, and it's a good fit. But again, it's not for everyone. So it goes without saying it's good to go online, do some coding. Download Figma if you're going to go into UX. Tinker around with some stuff. Ask some people, go to some meetups, and then start looking into the education piece. CHAD: Yeah. Are there ways in which you're exploring how either through partnerships or that kind of thing like it sounds like you've done to make it more accessible to people? JOHANNA: Yeah, so we put, again, Wyncode and BrainStation now puts a lot of importance on building a diverse, inclusive environment. And the most important thing is just collaborating also with organizations in our various regions that serve communities that are underrepresented in tech so that we can provide certain pathways to this. And one of the key things that we're doing with our Impact Scholarships, I think we've committed over $1.2 million just as BrainStation to giving those pathways. The other thing that we're piloting right now is what we're calling Tuition Free. So we piloted in London. Miami is the only other city we're testing it with in-person learning, not online, but it being completely tuition-free for the individual coming into the program, which we're calling a trainee. And then working with some amazing partners here in South Florida, in London who essentially, if they opt to hire someone for the program, are going to be paying a percentage training fee for hiring that individual. So we're really excited to be piloting what's called a reverse model. But more so, training people in a very specific skill set that companies need, eliminating financial barriers as much as possible, and then also providing a very robust, rapid pathway for this incredible talent to then join companies. And maybe we'll do a synopsis in about a year, and I'll let you know how it all went. CHAD: [laughs] That'd be great. That'd be great. So a common thread throughout this conversation has been Miami, and it's come on my radar recently in terms of the ecosystem there and how it's expanded and grown significantly over the last several years. You mentioned you picked up and moved there because you identified it as a great market. What has it been like for you? JOHANNA: It's been a whirlwind. I mean, #Miamitechisonfire, literally. CHAD: [laughs] JOHANNA: It's a pretty exciting time to be here. I got to say, when we moved in 2014, our campus was and still is based in Wynwood, which is a wonderful creative space but also mixed in with tech companies. CHAD: Is that why it's called what it's called, Wyncode? JOHANNA: Yeah, that's right. [laughs] Wyncode and Wynwood, yep. So the landlords knew they really had all the leverage, right? But we have had, and I've always had, an amazing space here. And when we first opened, the biggest complaint we got from people who took the program was there were not enough places to eat. And for anyone who's listening who's from Miami and spent time in Wynwood, that sounds crazy because now all the hottest restaurants are here in Wynwood. And that's happened in the span of, you know, I know we've been here for eight years, but that's happened like in the last five years. So a lot has changed. Wynwood is kind of an analogy to what's happened in the rest of Miami. It was kind of like a little bit quiet and slow, known for hospitality, awesome partying, real estate, not really known for all of this other stuff. The pandemic, again, was horrible from a business standpoint, terrible for some people, amazing for others. It was amazing for Miami. The state of Florida remained relatively open throughout the pandemic. So that attracted people here. The tax situation, no income tax, has also been very appealing, particularly for anyone who's made a lot of money in tech and crypto, in particular from Miami. And then we have this incredible Mayor, Mayor Francis Suarez, who, long before what's happening now, has been an advocate and supporter of the tech ecosystem and startup founders here, which I've personally had experience with. He's been amazing. You know, in Silicon Valley, there was some social media going on for anyone who saw it on Twitter, and he tweeted back, and he said, "Hey, Miami would love to have you, guys. How can we help?" And so there's this tagline in Miami which is how can we help? Trying to be an ecosystem that's here to help that's open to all. And that's been going on now for almost two years. And as a result, there's been a huge number of people in technology in particular who have moved here, both big names like Jon Oringer, Founder of Shutterstock, Keith Rabois, Founders Fund. There are so many people to name down to founders who are like; I'm starting a new startup. I don't want to do it in New York or Silicon Valley. I want to do it in Miami. So that's really exciting. I can tell you; there's more going on here than I could...before I could keep an Easy Calendar, I knew everyone. I knew what events were going on when and now it's just...there are multiple events, meetups, multiple companies to meet. So it's really, really an exciting time. I think Mayor Francis Suarez has said this, too but definitely making a play to be the capital of crypto. So there's a lot going on in the crypto space here, a lot going on in Web3. Like Web3 being at the beginning, this is still at the beginning. This is a moment that we're hoping to turn into a movement, and I think it's really, really exciting. I don't think everyone is going to stay here. I don't think Miami is going to be the next Silicon Valley or New York. It has its own character. It has its own vibe. It has its own way of functioning, and that's what it is. Its original kind of environment is also what's attracting people. So it's an evolution right now. It's going to change. The people who have come here and who have been here are all in the process of evolving to what the next chapter of Miami tech is. But it's definitely an exciting time. It was a place for me where I came to professionally reinvent myself as well and really be a part of building an ecosystem. And that's very much true today for anybody who is coming here. And I think that type of opportunity is really, really exciting. There's definitely an energy, yeah. CHAD: The state of Florida has passed laws like the Woke Act recently, which can present a challenge to employers strictly speaking. You're not allowed to ask certain questions around diversity or inclusion in interviews now. And that can be uncomfortable or difficult to do business in or to say, "Hey, we're the most welcoming company. Come here. Come to Miami." Is that something that's, you know, I'm not there. So is it a challenge on the ground, or does it not really affect people day-to-day? JOHANNA: I mean, that's a really good question. I would say I haven't encountered it personally or even on the professional side with how we've been hiring. So it's hard to say from my perspective. I think certainly there are some things going on in Florida that Florida and California are very different. I myself I'm not an American. I'm not as involved in the politics. But it'll be interesting to see what happens in the future and how these things shape. I will say that employers have a lot of power because they're the ones who are bringing in a lot of money into a state. They're hiring people. And so some of the responsibility is also on the companies and employers who are in their respective areas to advocate for the things that they want to see. And one of those things is diversity, inclusion, which not everybody has made that a number one priority. And the one thing that I've said in the past is creating an inclusive and diverse ecosystem is the opportunity I think that Miami has because it is a less established tech ecosystem. The canvas isn't fully painted over, so we have an opportunity to be unique and be different and to try to avoid maybe some of the biases that have existed in other tech ecosystems. But at this point, while there has been progress made and there are some amazing individuals doing amazing things like Leigh-Ann Buchanan leading Tech Equity Miami and JPMorgan Chase coming in to support that in a really big way and Knight Foundation, we're still at a state where the minorities are advocating for the minorities. And that's something I hope to one, personally contribute to changing but as an ecosystem as a whole hope to see that happen. Because, like I said, Miami is attracting people for a certain reason, and that's great. And I think if we could build a diverse ecosystem, that would also attract certain people and retain certain people. And I am a firm believer, and, I mean, there are also stats to back it up, but the best products are built by the most diverse teams. So it goes without saying that the most diverse ecosystem is going to result in the best companies, best environment, et cetera. And I think that's the big opportunity for Miami, but we still have a lot of work to do to get there. CHAD: Yeah. Well, if folks want to follow along with you or get in touch with you or learn more about BrainStation, where are all the places that they can do that? JOHANNA: Yeah. I would love to connect with everyone. On LinkedIn, we have all of our respective social handles just at BrainStation. Even our Wyncode handles are still alive, so that's great. My parting words would be if you know someone amazing, a professional who wants to pivot careers and learn in person, now is an amazing opportunity to apply to BrainStation for incredible education and network. And I'm really looking forward to seeing amazing professionals come through the program. CHAD: And I assume if you're in a position where you're hiring talent that you should also check out BrainStation. JOHANNA: Yes, thank you, Chad. We 100% the thing we take the most pride in is connecting this amazing talent with awesome companies. I always like to tell everyone to keep a very wide lens on the type of talent you're hiring for your technology teams because some of the best individuals have very non-traditional tech backgrounds but bring so, so much to the table. Our team does a lot of work in terms of once we get to know a partner, which I would love for you all to reach out and join; we do a lot of work to make sure that we are connecting curated talent to companies. And if you go to brainstation.io/hiring-partners, you'll be able to sign up there. CHAD: Wonderful. Jo, thank you so much for joining me. I really appreciate it. JOHANNA: Great. Thank you so much. Great to be on. CHAD: You can subscribe to the show and find notes and a transcript for this episode at giantrobots.fm. If you have questions or comments, email us at hosts@giantrobots.fm. And you can find me on Twitter at @cpytel. This podcast is brought to you by thoughtbot and produced and edited by Mandy Moore. Thanks so much for listening, and see you next time. ANNOUNCER: This podcast was brought to you by thoughtbot. thoughtbot is your expert design and development partner. Let's make your product and team a success. Special Guest: Johanna Mikkola.

Off Topic
#118 議論できる環境の重要性「シンキング・ラダー」

Off Topic

Play Episode Listen Later Jun 15, 2022 57:09


◎今週のトピック 前回のおさらい / テクノロジーが批判される理由 / 分断が広がる / ladder(はしご) / 青と赤のパープル(中間)で入るべき? / High RungとLow Rung / 仮説を持ちどう見るか / おもちゃと赤ちゃん / キャンセル / 自分の無知さを知ろう / 違う目線の深さ / コインベース社で政治の話はNG / アイディア・メイズ(迷路)/ ご感想聞かせてください! / リピートライム ◎Repeat Rhyme リピートライム YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCvwq0WozkB1jn4Cg57Ojqjg/videos?view=0&sort=p Spotify: https://spoti.fi/3Hq7Op2 Apple: https://apple.co/3MVqgH8 ◎参照リンク The Thinking Ladder https://waitbutwhy.com/2019/09/thinking-ladder.html #AIS: Tim Urban on political discourse + Keith Rabois on early-stage investing in 2022 https://youtu.be/ivDwzBYsED4 Market Research, Wireframing, and Design https://github.com/ladamalina/coursera-startup/blob/master/Week%203.%20Market%20Research%2C%20Wireframing%2C%20Design.%20HTML%2C%20CSS%2C%20JS./Lecture%205.%20Market%20Research%2C%20Wireframing%2C%20Design.pdf 【Spotifyオリジナルで新番組がスタート!】 bytes by Off Topic http://spoti.fi/bytesPodcast インタビュー動画シリーズもはじめました / https://www.youtube.com/c/offtopicjp ◎Twitter Off Topic https://twitter.com/OffTopicJP Miki Kusano https://twitter.com/mikikusano

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: Keith Rabois on Why Buy Low, Sell High Does Not Work in Venture, Keith's Biggest Lessons from Prior Crashes, Why Today's Public Markets are not an Over-Reaction, Why Valuation is a Trap & Why Wokeness is a Function of Entitlement

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Play Episode Listen Later May 30, 2022 39:49 Very Popular


Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the best performing funds of the last decade with a portfolio including Facebook, Airbnb, SpaceX, Stripe, Anduril, the list goes on. As for Keith, he has led the first institutional investments in DoorDash, Affirm and co-founded Opendoor. He has also led investments in Faire, Ramp, Trade Republic, and Stripe. As an operator, Keith has an unparalleled track record as a Senior Exec at Paypal, he then went on to influential roles at Linkedin and being COO at Square. Finally, as an angel, Keith made early investments into Airbnb, Lyft, Palantir, Wish and more. In Today's Episode with Keith Rabois: 1.) Buy Low, Sell High: What BS! Why does Keith believe that "buy low, sell high" does not work in venture? Why would it lead you to very dangerous investment decisions at the early stage? How does the size of your fund impact the appropriateness of "buy low, sell high"? 2.) The Current Landscape: Does Keith believe the current state of public markets is an over-reaction or a new normal? How does Keith respond to the suggestion that Founders Fund has paused new investments given the uncertainty in the market? How does Keith think about investing through cycles and temporal diversification? How does Keith advise young investors today questioning whether they are actually any good at this? What does Keith believe are his biggest fears and insecurities today? 3.) Outcome Scenario Planning and Competitor Analysis: Does Keith believe outcome scenario planning is important? Why does Keith believe you can always tell your biggest hits early? What have been the core signs for him? What have been some of Keith's biggest lessons from Mike Moritz and Vinod Khosla when it comes to upside maximization? What are the right questions to ask? Why does Keith believe you do need to look through public market comps when investing in startups? 4.) Time Allocation and Losing Faith in Founders: How does Keith approach time allocation across the portfolio? Spend time with the winners or help the struggling companies? What have been his biggest lessons here? What does Keith do when he has lost faith in the founder? How does he communicate it to them? What does Kieth believe VCs do wrong when they no longer believe in the founder or company? 5.) Do VCs Add Value? What does Keith believe is the acid test for whether he is doing his job as a VC properly? Why does Keith believe there are only 5 board members that add true value to their companies at scale? Who is the best board member Keith has ever worked with? Why? Why does Keith believe that age is not your friend as an investor? How does he combat this? 6.) The Downfall of SF and Wokeness: Will we see a reduction of wokeness in companies with the public markets correcting and power shifting from employees to employers? Is Keith concerned by the lack of coherence in the US today when it comes to politics? What are the core reasons for the downfall of SF to Keith? Why does he believe it is a net negative to build a company in SF today? Items Mentioned in Today's Episode: Keith's Most Recent Investment: Found

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg
#AIS: Tim Urban on political discourse + Keith Rabois on early-stage investing in 2022

All-In with Chamath, Jason, Sacks & Friedberg

Play Episode Listen Later May 26, 2022 69:01 Very Popular


0:00 Tim Urban gives a talk on political discourse in America and explains high-rung vs. low-rung thinking 26:20 The Besties and Keith Rabois join Tim Urban on stage for a roundtable discussion on cancel culture 51:23 Keith Rabois talks about taking a pause on new investments in 2022 and gives his take on other major VC players Follow the guests: https://twitter.com/waitbutwhy https://twitter.com/rabois Follow the besties: https://twitter.com/chamath https://linktr.ee/calacanis https://twitter.com/DavidSacks https://twitter.com/friedberg Follow the pod: https://twitter.com/theallinpod https://linktr.ee/allinpodcast Intro Music Credit: https://rb.gy/tppkzl https://twitter.com/yung_spielburg Intro Video Credit: https://twitter.com/TheZachEffect

Three Cartoon Avatars
EP 13: An Interview with Keith Rabois on Why He Tweets and Miami Tech Week, Netflix Loses 200K Subscribers, and Even More Elon

Three Cartoon Avatars

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 23, 2022 83:33 Very Popular


(04:35) Miami Tech Week is just dangerous being so close to Coachella(08:18) Netflix somehow losing subscribers even though they raised prices and have 98 competitors(24:14) Elon Musk just buying stuff out of spite(29:57) A16Z's new Accelerator(36:08) Keith Rabois interview and his hottest of takes Follow the show:https://twitter.com/3cartoonavatarshttps://www.instagram.com/3cartoonavatars/https://www.tiktok.com/@3cartoonavatars Follow the hosts:https://twitter.com/zckhttps://twitter.com/nikitabierhttps://twitter.com/loganbartlett Mixed and edited: Justin HrabovskyProduced: Andrew Nadeau and Rashad AssirExecutive Producer: Josh MachizMusic: Griff Lawson Reference Links:Netflix stock loss: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/04/19/netflix-nflx-earnings-q1-2022.htmlElon Musk twitter funding: https://www.theverge.com/2022/4/21/23033445/elon-musk-twitter-bank-debt-commitment-letterA16Z Accelerator program: https://techcrunch.com/2022/04/18/andreessen-horowitz-a16z-start-seed/

No Rules Berlin
Ep.122: Inside Apple's Design Process (Ken Kocienda)

No Rules Berlin

Play Episode Listen Later Apr 17, 2022 41:13


We share notes about a phenomenal book that describes the product philosophy of Apple. Recommended by Keith Rabois. Find it on Amazon: Creative Selection - Inside Apple's Design Process During the Golden Age of Steve Jobs. https://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/152900473X/ref=ox_sc_act_image_2?smid=A3JWKAKR8XB7XF&psc=1 Dieter Rams documentary: https://www.hustwit.com/rams/ Download the Callin app for iOS and Android to listen to this podcast live, call in, and more! Also available at callin.com

PitchIt
Weekly News Roundup - March 24, 2022

PitchIt

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 26, 2022 32:37


This week's list of top stories include: Apple Acquires Credit Kudos One source said the deal valued Credit Kudos at about $150 million, a significant uplift on its last funding round. startup offers insights and scores on loan applicants drawn from bank data Tink and Aiia bought by Visa and Mastercard previously Unknown what Apple has planned FTX Invests $100M in Banking App Dave, Forms Partnership for Crypto Payments FTX US will serve as the exclusive partner for any crypto offerings offered by Dave. $100 million investment from FTX Ventures was through a convertible note, a type of short-term debt. currently exploring how to introduce digital asset payments onto Dave's platform. Katie Haun debuts Haun Ventures with $1.5B in capital to back crypto startups Haun Ventures $1.5 billion in capital across two funds — a $500 million early-stage fund and a $1 billion “acceleration” fund. “We believe the next generation of the internet deserves a new generation of investors,” Haun wrote in a blog post announcing the fund. Haun Ventures will aim to lean into regulatory expertise as one of the firm's defining advantages Ramp confirms new $8.1B valuation after ‘a nearly 10x' YoY increase in revenue secured $550 million in debt and $200 million in equity in a new financing that doubles its valuation to $8.1 billion. “Ramp is an example where we invested early then continued to double down as we saw the rapid velocity of execution and unprecedented customer adoption,” Founders Fund's Keith Rabois said. “close to a 10x” bump in revenue year-over-year in 2021. the company started out focused on small-to-medium-sized businesses (SMBs), it now works with “businesses of all sizes” Robinhood's new debit card will automatica

Not Boring
Ramping Up

Not Boring

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 21, 2022 45:04


Today, Ramp announced that it raised $750 million -- $200 million in equity and $550 in debt -- at an $8.1 billion valuation from existing investors, led by Keith Rabois at Founders Fund. Not Boring Capital participated. It also hit $100 million in annualized revenue just two years after launching. For this piece, Ramp's co-founders Eric Glyman and Karim Atiyeh let me peek behind the curtains to help understand what Ramp is building and how. I think that they have a Google-sized opportunity in front of them. You can read the full piece at Not Boring. Thanks to today's sponsor, Masterworks, the best place to invest in world-class art without needing a world-class bank account. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/notboring/message

Monólogo Estéreo
Política cada vez mais geek

Monólogo Estéreo

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 14, 2022 4:52


O documentário Cryptoland da Vice e como a guerra na Ucrânia acelerou ainda mais o processo de digitalização da política. Cryptoland Entrevista de Keith Rabois, no New York Times Apoie depositando qualquer quantia em pix@eduf.me. Ou comprando qualquer coisa via nosso link afiliado no Amazon.

Just Raised
Ep.37: Ronak Trivedi, CEO and Co-Founder of Pietra | Online Factories | VC

Just Raised

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 9, 2022 47:05


Cloud factories! How does a successful YouTuber diversify into creating a physical product? Through Pietra and visionary CEO Ronak Trivedi. The hardest element of launching a direct to consumer product is the physical act of creating that product, then comes packaging, shipping and storage. If you have the audience but not the experience, how can you make this transition? Through online factories and letting creators work with some of the biggest suppliers in retail. Joe talks to Ronak about how he helped secure $15m from Keith Rabois and Founders Fund, why one creator is going to become the next best selling product line and how the likes of George Clooney, Rihanna and Kylie Jenner did similar with $1b-lines in tequila, lingerie, and cosmetics. You'll hear how Pietra is fuelling the passion product economy and why it offers end-to-end services with its own eCommerce marketplace. Follow Ronak: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ronaktrivedi/ (linkedin.com/in/ronaktrivedi) Twitter: https://twitter.com/therealRoShow (twitter.com/therealRoShow) Check out the Just Raised newsletter: https://bit.ly/3Ghj2tY Stay up-to-date on all things Just Raised: https://workweek.com/brand/just-raised/ or follow Joe Sweeny on Twitter: https://twitter.com/JoeySweeny (https://twitter.com/JoeySweeny) And if you're a fan of Acquired, Invest Like The Best, Business Breakdowns or 20VC, you'll love Just Raised

French Workbench
Ep #85 - Opendoor Lost $662 Million in 2021 Impacting Las Vegas Market as Stocks Plunge

French Workbench

Play Episode Listen Later Mar 1, 2022 63:46


Welcome the French Workbench Podcast and Las Vegas Experience with Dan French. 16:00 - Discussion on Opendoor Losing Money Zillow has been pilloried for diving headfirst into iBuying only to announce the money-losing enterprise's demise in November. Meanwhile, Opendoor, the OG of an iBuying company with a national presence and patina of technological prowess, was upheld as doing things right. “If you read our SPAC filings,” Opendoor co-founder Keith Rabois, who is no longer part of company leadership, tweeted in November, “We explained how our algorithms actually work vs. Zillow's which are horrible.” Fast forward to Thursday, and Opendoor reported losing $662 million in 2021. That exceeds Zillow's $528 million loss for the year. It also surpasses by 161% Opendoor's 2020 loss of $253 million. Looking to Sell? FIND OUT YOUR HOME'S VALUE: https://www.lvhomeprofessionals.com/sell.php

Founders
The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley

Founders

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 23, 2022 39:38


What I learned from reading The Founders: The Story of PayPal and the Entrepreneurs Who Shaped Silicon Valley by Jimmy Soni.Subscribe to listen to the rest of this episode and gain access to 241 full length episodes.WHAT OTHER PEOPLE ARE SAYING:“Without a doubt, the highest value-to-cost ratio I've taken advantage of in the last year is the Founders podcast premium feed. Tap into eons of knowledge and experiences, condensed into digestible portions. Highly, highly recommend. “Uniquely outstanding. No fluff and all substance. David does an outstanding job summarizing these biographies and hones in on the elements that make his subjects so unique among entrepreneurs. I particularly enjoy that he focuses on both the founder's positive and negative characteristics as a way of highlighting things to mimic and avoid.”“I just paid for my first premium podcast subscription for Founders podcast. Learning from those who came before us is one of the highest value ways to invest time. David does his homework and exponentially improves my efficiency by focusing on the most valuable lessons.”“I haven't found a better return on my time and money than your podcast for inspiration and time-tested wisdom to help me on my journey.“I've now listened to every episode. From this knowledge I've doubled my business to $500k a year. Love your passion and recommend your podcast to everyone.”“Founders is the only podcast I pay for and it's worth 100x the cost.”“I have listened to many podcasts on entrepreneurship (HIBT, Masters of Scale, etc.) and find Founders to be consistently more helpful than any other entrepreneurship podcast. David is a craftsperson, he carefully reads biographies of founders, distills the most important anecdotes and themes from their life, and draws commonalities across lives. David's focus is rightfully not on teaching you a formula to succeed but on constantly pushing you to think different.”“I highly highly recommend this podcast. Holy cow. I've been binge listening to these and you start to see patterns across all these incredible humans.”Listening to your podcast has changed my life and that is not a statement I make often.“After one episode I quickly joined the Misfit feed. Love the insight and thoughts shared along the way. David loves what he does and it shines through on the podcast. Definitely my go-to podcast now.”“It is worth every penny. I cannot put into words how fantastic this podcast is. Just stop reading this and get the full access.”“Personally it's one of my top 3 favorite podcasts. If you're into business and startups and technology, this is for you. David covers good books and I've come to really appreciate his perspective. Can't say enough good things.”“I quickly subscribed and it's honestly been the best money I've spent all year. It has inspired me to read biographies. Highly recommend.”“This is the most inspirational and best business podcast out there. David has inspired me to focus on biographies rather than general business books. I'm addicted.”“Anyone interested in business must find the time to listen to each any every Founders podcast. A high return on investment will be a virtual certainty. Subscribe and start listening as soon as possible.”“David saves you hundreds of hours by summarizing bios of legendary business founders and providing valuable insight on what makes an individual successful. He has introduced me to many founders I would have never known existed.”“The podcasts offer spectacular lessons on life, human nature and business achievement. David's enthusiasm and personal thoughts bring me joy. My journey has been enhanced by his efforts.”"Founders is the best self investment that I've made in years."Sign up to listen to the rest of this episode and get access to every full episode. You will learn the key insights from biographies on Steve Jobs, Elon Musk, John D. Rockefeller, Coco Chanel, Andrew Carnegie, Enzo Ferrari, Estee Lauder, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, Phil Knight, Joseph Pulitzer, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Alexander Graham Bell, Bill Gates, P.T. Barnum, Edwin Land, Henry Ford, Walter Chrysler, Thomas Edison, David Ogilvy, Ben Franklin, Howard Hughes, George Lucas, Levi Strauss, Walt Disney and so many more. You will learn from the founders of Nike, Patagonia, Apple, Microsoft, Hershey, General Motors, Ford, Standard Oil, Polaroid, Home Depot, MGM, Intel, Federal Express, Wal Mart, JP Morgan, Chrysler, Cadillac, Oracle, Hyundai, Seagram, Berkshire Hathaway, Teledyne, Adidas, Les Schwab, Renaissance Technologies, IKEA, Sony, Ferrari, and so many more. Sign up to listen to the rest of this episode and get access to every full episode. 

This Week in Startups - Audio
Keith Rabois of Founders Fund + AirBnB's earnings & evolving customer base, SF BOE recall | E1388

This Week in Startups - Audio

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2022 77:24


World-class investor-operator Keith Rabois is back for his eighth time! But first, Jason breaks down Airbnb's great Q4 and full-year earnings report (2:42) and how its customer segment is evolving. Then, he briefly covers the SF Board of Education recall (22:58). When Keith joins (31:27), he and Jason discuss: 1. How he called the top of the tech market in November 2021 2. Keith's 2019 prediction that came true 2. Venture Capital's decaying price discipline 3. Facebook's challenge ahead 4. Six predictions for the market Notes 0:00 Jason intros today's topics: $ABNB full year earnings, SF BOE recall, and a Keith Rabois interview 2:42 Jason breaks down Airbnb's full year results 11:57 Vanta - Get get $1,000 off automating your SOC 2 at https://vanta.com/twist 13:14 Jason reflects on Airbnb's roadmap based on clues from their earnings report 21:42 Gun.io - Get $250 off your first developer hire at https://Gun.io/twist! 22:58 SF Board of Education recall, tech people getting involved in government 29:56 Eight Sleep - Go to https://eightsleep.com/twist to check out the Pod Pro Cover and get $150 off at checkout! 31:27 Keith Rabois joins and talks with Jason about calling the top of the tech market in November 43:27 Reflecting on the absence of pricing discipline in VC and how the FED is running out of tools to combat inflation 53:34 Breaking down Facebook's precarious situation 1:05:16 6 Market predictions Check out Founders Fund: https://www.foundersfund.com FOLLOW Keith: https://twitter.com/rabois FOLLOW Jason: https://linktr.ee/calacanis FOLLOW Molly: https://twitter.com/mollywood

Sway
Tech's Love Affair With Miami

Sway

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2022 41:22


Keith Rabois minted his wealth with Elon Musk, Peter Thiel and other members of the so-called “PayPal Mafia.” Now, though, he's moved to Miami and become one of the city's biggest hype men. He believes Florida — which has already seen an influx of tech bros, venture capital investments and cryptocurrency plays during the pandemic — offers a better home to tech than California can, largely because of the politics. He tells Kara Swisher: “The mayor of Miami, the governor of Florida treat citizens like customers. ‘What can we offer you? How can we help?' That's their goal, and that's how they frame everything.”In this conversation, Kara presses Rabois whether tech's doubling down on Florida is all just about escaping high taxes. They also discuss whether venture capital is what investment banking was in the 2000s. And they catch up on the news, from stock fall-offs in big tech to why Peter Thiel will be stepping down from Meta's board.You can find transcripts (posted midday) and more information for all episodes at nytimes.com/sway, and you can find Kara on Twitter @karaswisher.

This Week in Startups - Audio
Keith Rabois of Founders Fund + AirBnB's earnings & evolving customer base, SF BOE recall | E1388

This Week in Startups - Audio

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 17, 2022 77:24


World-class investor-operator Keith Rabois is back for his eighth time! But first, Jason breaks down Airbnb's great Q4 and full-year earnings report (2:42) and how its customer segment is evolving. Then, he briefly covers the SF Board of Education recall (22:58). When Keith joins (31:27), he and Jason discuss: 1. How he called the top of the tech market in November 2021 2. Keith's 2019 prediction that came true 2. Venture Capital's decaying price discipline 3. Facebook's challenge ahead 4. Six predictions for the market

Rohun's Reflections
How to build Billion Dollar companies with Keith Rabois, General Partner at Founders Fund

Rohun's Reflections

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 15, 2022 68:25


This conversation is between Keith Rabois, a General Partner at Founder's Fund and Rohun Jauhar, the founding Partner of JT Capital.We had a great discussion speaking about his work on a Presidential campaign, what he learned working at legendary Silicon Valley companies, how he recruits the best people, a few of his current investments, and his routine & habits.

Three Cartoon Avatars
EP3: Razzlekhan and Crypto, Bored Ape Reveal, Binance and Forbes, and Peloton's CEO

Three Cartoon Avatars

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 12, 2022 48:07


Razzlekhan crypto heist, Bored Ape Yacht Club dox, and even more things that sound like you asked a buzzword generator to come up with a terrible move title. Plus, Binance invests in Forbes in a way that DEFINITELY isn't at all suspicious, and, impressively for a stationary bike, Peloton crashes yet again. (04:02) Razzlekhan and Dutch Lichtenstein - stealing $4.5B in crypto. Surrealist rapper and husband facing 20 years in price on(16:24) Bored Ape Yacht Club doxxing. Was it ok to reveal the team behind the phenomenon?(27:55) Brantley Milligan from ENS doubles down on old homophobic and transphobic Tweets and is ousted from DAO.(32:16) Shady crypto exchange invests $200M in Forbes ahead of planned SPAC. What's the agenda here?(38:03) John Foley steps down as CEO of Peloton after a string of issues. Follow the show:https://twitter.com/3cartoonavatarshttps://www.instagram.com/3cartoonavatars/https://www.tiktok.com/@3cartoonavatars Follow the hosts:https://twitter.com/zck?s=21https://twitter.com/nikitabier?s=21https://twitter.com/loganbartlett?s=21 Mixed and edited: Justin HrabovskyProduced: Andrew Nadeau and Rashad AssirMusic: Griff LawsonShow notes:Nikita telling Keith Rabois wrong: https://twitter.com/nikitabier/status/1491444980035973121?s=20&t=v0BR_xyXPCd56OugD5AOfQRazzlekhanHow the FBI cracked the caseYouTube: Crocodile of Wall StreetTikTok:  Where are my AirPodsTikTok:  Fluffy PancakeTwitter: Beer Drinking with feetTwitter: Criminal MastermindTwitter: Crypto HeistTwitter: How to get away with crypto heist https://twitter.com/icebergy_/status/1491110412397715457Buzzfeed doxxing of BAYC founders: https://www.buzzfeednews.com/article/katienotopoulos/bored-ape-nft-founder-identityBrantly Milligan Tweet: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/FK4USv8WUAEkN0z.jpgBloomberg article on CZ's net worth: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2022-01-09/binance-ceo-cz-s-net-worth-billionaire-holds-world-s-biggest-crypto-fortuneAmazon Films fueling Bezos' ego: https://logicmag.io/commons/inside-the-whale-an-interview-with-an-anonymous-amazonian/Blackwells Capital teardown of Peloton: https://www.blackwellscap.com/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/BW_Peloton_Presentation_Feb072022.pdf

DTC POD: A Podcast for eCommerce and DTC Brands
#168 - Matt Lanter: Co-Founder, OpenStore - The Fastest Way to Sell Your Shopify Store

DTC POD: A Podcast for eCommerce and DTC Brands

Play Episode Listen Later Feb 3, 2022 52:13


Matt Lanter is OpenStore's Head of Product and Co-Founder. Matt served as an engineering and product leader at Opendoor, Facebook and Apple. He was the Chief of Staff at Founders Fund where he worked closely with entrepreneurs building the next set of companies. OpenStore provides life-changing liquidity to Shopify business entrepreneurs that are ready to sell their business so they can move on to what's next. Anyone can get a free, no obligation offer for their business within 24 hours by visiting open.store.00:14 - Helping entrepreneurs exitMatt explained that just like selling a house, selling a business can be a lengthy and complicated process. He wanted to change that.“We provide liquidity to Shopify entrepreneurs. We provide them with an exit and the ability to sell their business when they're ready to. A lot of these entrepreneurs don't really have other options to sell their business. They're too small for private equity. They don't necessarily have the characteristics that venture capitalists are looking for. And there are brokers and marketplaces they could go with, but similar to all other marketplaces, even selling your house, there's no guarantee you'll be able to find a buyer. You can spend a lot of time talking to potential buyers and waste time. So we wanted to make it really simple for these Shopify entrepreneurs to come to our website, connect their Shopify account, their Facebook and Google marketing data if they have it, and get an offer within a day to sell a business if they're ready to.”04:16 - The problem with private equityPrivate equity tends to go after high-value targets. It's also very high-touch, with a process and payment terms that can move at a glacial pace.“Private equity tends to be more like $50 million+ in GMV, so it tends to be on the larger side. Whereas for us, our target size of businesses is between $500K and $10 million. Part of it is that private equity firms tend to be very human-based and use a lot of humans to value these businesses and go through that process. Whereas we've built this pricing engine that's able to within 24 hours deliver an offer for your business. So we're able to serve a much wider swath of businesses and really serve as many people as we can….With private equity also, it's usually a multi-year payout. And there's earnouts over time and all these percentages, and it's a fairly complicated thing for sure. We want to make it very simple. You come to us, you get your offer. It's a very clear price. You actually get 80% of it on the day you close. And then there's a short 1-2 month transition period where you help us learn about your business. And then you get the remaining 20% at the end of that.”15:11 - A streamlined sale processWhen selling on OpenStore, founders immediately get 80% of the payout. After helping transition the business, they get the rest. Meanwhile, OpenStore works hard to maintain brand integrity.“Once you close you get 80% of the cash around then, and then it's a 1-2 month transition period. So the founder works with our team for us to understand how they run their business, transition everything over to us. Domains, all the various parts of the business. And then we run it from there. To that point, as we build out this operating platform we've created a set of OpenStore best practices. Various tools, internal and external, that we use to help run these businesses at scale. And analytics is a very important thing as well. So investing in that and moving those brands to our way of running and growing them. But one thing is we do really want to maintain the brands and grow the brands. We don't want to take a company and then just get rid of the brand. We really want to keep the brand and grow the brand and highlight what the entrepreneur has built.”19:57 - The power of brandOpenStore works exclusively with Shopify brands because they find branding to be important and rewarding work. Shopify provides the tools that the team needs to help brands thrive.“We really like that these Shopify e-commerce brands have a really strong brand. Whereas the ones on Amazon tend to don't need to focus as much on the brand, because they're on Amazon. And Amazon helps them with customer acquisition. And so we focused on Shopify stores because we believe in a strong brand and a strong building-out of these brands. For example, you look at Nike, which is obviously a very well-known brand. and they aren't on Amazon. They can't control their brand experience. And we really want to control the full stack of things…When you're running these businesses, there's marketing, supply chain, demand, planning, forecasting, all those complex things. Which when you run them on Shopify, there's like a lot of room for us to really grow and build out a great platform there. Whereas Amazon takes care of a lot of those things for you, so it was less exciting work for us.”22:45 - Promoting entrepreneurshipMatt and his team are big cheerleaders for entrepreneurs. They hope that the ability to make an easy exit with OpenStore will convince even more people to build something new.“Part of the reason people may be hesitant to start a brand right now, even if they have a really cool idea, is that they could pour years of their life into this and a lot of hard work. And then there's no certain exit after that. Like after five years, let's say, maybe they want to do something else. They don't want to sign up like, ‘I'm going to work on this brand for the next 80 years' or a long time. But now that we provide an exit, hopefully more people will create brands. Generally I think entrepreneurship is just great for society and great for the individuals as well.”26:20 - Catering to startup addictsMatt recognizes that some founders enjoy the thrill of a zero-to-one startup environment. They don't want to be handcuffed to a business long-term, even if it's successful.“A lot of people just enjoy the zero-to-one type of work, and don't want to do the scaling work. Just like you see at startups or other companies, the types of people who enjoy working at a startup versus a larger tech company tend to be different as well. And we have found, to your point about shutting down the business, some of the early companies we acquired when we actually met the founders right when we were starting, some of them were actually in the process of already even shutting down their business. And then they found out about us at the last minute, and were very excited and happy. But it is crazy to think about you pour all your time and effort in this business, just to shut it down.”29:06 - How to prepare to sell your businessOpenStore serves entrepreneurs of all business types. That said, Matt recommends improving product margin and lowering CAC to make your business profitable and attractive.“We want to serve as many entrepreneurs as possible. So we're not particular with what they sell or even the characteristics of the business. It could be a higher margin, lower margin, different repeat purchase rates, average order sizes. But in terms of things to obviously improve your business and grow them, I'm sure it's a lot of things people have heard and standard things. Obviously improving the margin of your products helps by decreasing your fixed costs. On the customer acquisition side, lowering your cost of customer acquisition, which kind of ties to building a product that delights customers. That will lower your costs naturally.”31:11 - OpenStore's 5 foundersA complex business requires a team with varied expertise. That's why Matt is one of five founders who share the work of running the business.“There's five founders of us in total. Obviously it's a really complex business, so we wanted to start with a really great team. So myself, I'm the head of product. And then like I mentioned, Jack Abraham from Atomic came up with the idea, and has been helping us along. As well as Keith Rabois, who is a partner at Founders Fund, another venture firm, and was an executive at Square and LinkedIn. He's currently our CEO, so helping making sure that we're building a great company and making the right decisions. And then we have Jeremy [Wood] our head of engineering, and Mike [Rubenstein] our president who's been president of other great startups, helping us build and scale the company. And as we build out the team, we focus a lot on engineering, product, design, so that we can really run these brands at scale. So both the pricing engine, being able to build a great pricing engine with data science to quickly deliver evaluation to businesses as well as building out the operations platform to help run these businesses.”33:03 - The magic of MiamiRight now, Miami is a hotbed for startup innovation. The city is in full “building mode” compared to more established startup cities that are in “preservation mode.”“I think everyone's really excited about Miami. I think in some ways there's actually similarities between startups and companies and cities. So early in a startup, obviously people are very excited about what you're building. You're focusing on 10x opportunities to grow the business and really optimistic about the future. And then once a company builds something valuable, then companies naturally switch a little more into value preservation or protection. And I think cities are the same way. So San Francisco and New York obviously have been great tech scenes and are great tech scenes, but they're a little bit more in this value preservation mode rather than being excited about building new things. And so what we all love about Miami is everyone here is super excited about building, solving really hard problems. So it's great both from a work and a lifestyle standpoint.” This episode is brought to you by OrderGroove and OpenStore:Visit  https://www.ordergroove.com/dtcpod/?utm_source=event&utm_medium=podcast&utm_campaign=2022q1_dtcpodpodcast_thirdparty_demo_us&utm_content=demo  today to receive 2-months off your first contract.Visit https://open.store to get a free, no-obligation offer for your ecommerce business from OpenStore in 24 hours. Have any questions about the show or topics you'd like us to explore further? Shoot us a DM, we'd love to hear from you. Matt Lanter - Head of Product of Open.storeRamon Berrios - CEO of Trend.ioBlaine Bolus - COO of Omnipanel

TechCheck
Is the Crash Already Here?, Sony Pictures CEO Ahead of New Spider-Man Release & Founders Fund's Keith Rabois on the Future of Fintech

TechCheck

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 16, 2021 44:24


Our anchors start off the morning with shares of Adobe plummeting on weak guidance. Then, we are joined by Craft Ventures Co-Founder David Sacks, who says the crash is already here – it's just not very evenly distributed. Sacks, who was an early investor in Reddit, also shares his thoughts on the social media company confidentially filing to go public. Next, Sony Pictures Chairman and CEO Tony Vinciquerra is here to discuss the upcoming release of “Spider-Man: No Way Home” as well as omicron's potential impact on theater goers. We also have Founders Fund General Partner Keith Rabois to discuss tech valuations, Shopify, buy now, pay later and so much more. Then, CNBC's Scott Cohn is here with the latest details on the Holmes trial as closing arguments begin today. And later, we cover Apple's latest COVID-19 precautions.

Outliers with Daniel Scrivner
Infinite Games: Delian Asparouhov of Varda Space Industries on Problem Solving with Space Manufacturing

Outliers with Daniel Scrivner

Play Episode Listen Later Dec 8, 2021 62:30


“Trust is not what makes successful co-founding relationships. Having the world-class skillset that you need to succeed is what will then form that trust that will allow you to succeed.” – Delian Asparahouv  Delian Asparouhov (@zebulgar) is Co-Founder, President, and Chairman of Varda Space Industriess, and he is also Principal at Founders Fund. He was previously Chief of Staff, then Principal at Khosla Ventures, where he created essays on the habits and processes of Keith Rabois. Before founding his first company, Nightingale, he was interned at Square as an Android developer. Show notes with links, quotes, and a transcript of the episode: https://www.danielscrivner.com/notes/delian-asparouhov1-outlier-academy-show-notes   Chapters Delian's background in robotics and path to entrepreneurship Mentorship from Jack Dorsey and Keith Rabois Essays on learnings from Keith Rabois Leaning into your superpowers when investing Cultivating optimism in investing Common mistakes in venture capital Incubating a company Getting started in the space industry What is a space factory? Problem solving with space manufacturing Exciting changes in the space industry Recommended resources in the space industry Sign up here for Outlier Debrief, our weekly newsletter that highlights the latest episode, expands on important business and investing concepts, and contains the best of what we read each week. Follow Outlier Academy on Twitter: https://twitter.com/outlieracademy. If you loved this episode, please share a quick review on Apple Podcasts.

The Real Word
Opendoor vs Zillow & The Most Interesting Man in Real estate | Real Word 198

The Real Word

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 9, 2021 21:39


Byron and Nicole breakdown a tweet from Keith Rabois calling out Opendoor's main competitor Zillow. Topic 2 is all about ADU's and the value that they bring to a home when listing it for sale. And lastly, the pair brings us “The Most Interesting Man in Real Estate.” Subscribe to The Real Word Channel → https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCTTMiZF0wRlmME_ap5EqfnQ?sub_confirmation=1 Racket 1: Opendoor co-founder slams Zillow, calls portal's tech 'horrible' https://www.inman.com/2021/11/04/opendoor-co-founder-slams-zillow-calls-portals-tech-horrible/ Racket 2: ADUs Can Add 35% to Home's Value https://magazine.realtor/daily-news/2021/11/04/study-adus-can-add-35-to-home-s-value Racket 3: The Most Interesting Man in Real Estate https://www.instagram.com/tv/CV6NPwNAlRE/?utm_medium=copy_link Connect with Byron: Website: https://www.byronlazine.com/​​ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/byronlazine/​​ Twitter: https://twitter.com/byronlazine​​ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@byronlazine The Real Word: https://www.youtube.com/channel/there​​... 5AM Call Sign-up: https://www.5amcall.com/​​ Newsletter here: https://www.byronlazine.com/subscribe​​ Connect with Nicole White: Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nicolewhiter... Instagram: www.instagram.com/nicolewhiterealtor

Hacker News TLDR
[#107] Metaverses, Selling Homes, and Fusion

Hacker News TLDR

Play Episode Listen Later Nov 6, 2021 29:03


We discuss whether the metaverse is bullshit, is the internet, or is minecraft. What's Sam Altman up to today? And how much money can you lose from automating home sales? Links Physics Student Earns PhD at Age 89 The metaverse is bullshit The metaverse is already here, it's called the internet The metaverse is already here – it's Minecraft Review: The 14-inch MacBook Pro Resets the Timeline Google's infamous internal 2010 “I just want to serve 5TB” video now public Now you can (try to) serve five terabytes, too Backblaze S-1 IPO The 3-2-1 Backup Strategy HashiCorp – S1 IPO Zillow to stop flipping homes, loses more than $550M, lays off 25% of staff Keith Rabois's Twitter Helion

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
20VC: The Opendoor Memo: Keith Rabois on The Origins of Opendoor from a Conversation with Peter Thiel, Why Cash is Not a Competitive Moat for Startups Today and What People Misunderstand About Black Swan Events in Real Estate and How it Impacts Opendoor

The Twenty Minute VC: Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch

Play Episode Listen Later Sep 30, 2021 36:56


Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the most successful venture firms of the last decade with home runs in the likes of SpaceX, Palantir, Stripe, Anduril, Facebook, Airbnb, Nubank and many more. As for Keith, he led the first institutional investments in DoorDash, Affirm and has also led investments in Ramp, Trade Republic, Faire and Stripe. Prior to venture, Keith had the most stellar operating career, joining PayPal when their monthly burn-rate was $6 million; Keith joined LinkedIn, Slide and Square when they had no revenue. Fun fact, five companies Keith helped build are now publicly traded with market caps >$1 Billion. Three others have been acquired for greater than $1 Billion or are publicly traded IPOs. If that was not enough, Keith is also the Co-Founder and CEO @ OpenStore, acquiring small DTC businesses. In Today's Episode with Keith Rabois You Will Learn: 1.) How Keith first came up with the idea for Opendoor? How a conversation with Peter Thiel led to the founding of the first iteration of the company? Why did it take Keith close to a decade to pursue the idea fully, post having the idea in 2003? 2.) The Market: What made Keith so excited to pursue Opendoor from a top-down market analysis perspective? What does Keith look for in markets he likes to invest in? How did Keith expect the market to change and evolve? What did the market do differently to how Keith thought it would behave? 3.) The Business Model: With debt being the oxygen for Opendoor, how many homes did they need to acquire before they could prove they could price homes accurately? What were Keith's lessons from the first homes they bought? What did not go to plan? Why does Keith disagree, if macro hits real estate, Opendoor's model is challenged? Why does Keith believe it is stronger then? 4.) The Team: What does Keith look for in the founding teams he backs? How does Keith detect diamonds in the rough? How can teams systematically de-risk an opportunity with their experience? With the benefit of hindsight, what would Keith have done differently with the team? 5.) The Funding: Was fundraising for Opendoor always easy? How did the seed round go down? How does Keith feel today about pre-emptive rounds where little company development has taken place? Why did Opendoor decide to SPAC? Why not a direct list? Was this the right choice? What makes for the best SPAC partner?