Desi Programmer @ Work

Startup School 2012 Notes

Mark Zuckerberg - Founder, Facebook
My ideal workplace was Microsoft. If I hadn't done Facebook, I would have been at Microsoft
It is sort of a social networking version of Moore's Law. In ten years folks will share 1000 times what they do now

Jessica Livingston - Partner, Y Combinator
We ask founders to focus on only three things during YC cycle: Write code, talk to users, execute

Travis Kalanick - Founder, Uber
It wasn't about taking over the world, it was about being better in San Francisco.

Ben Silbermann - Pinterest
Making things can take a long time
I used to talk a lot about ideas but only executed when once my wife told me that either I should build it or stop talking about it
The future is unwritten
Ship when you have one great thing
You need to trust the users, trust the data and trust your instincts
Build something you believe in or you'll burn out
Don't give up

Ron Conway - Angel Investor
I still don't get Facebook but I can never argue with growth

Ben Horowitz - Andreeseen Horowitz
The greatest thing about being rich is that you don't need to do business with people you don't like
No matter how hard it is, it is always harder than it looks
Whenever someone would ask me how my startup was doing, I would say: Great! I sleep like a baby; I wake up every two hours and cry
There is no crying in baseball and no profit for number 2 in technology markets
... and I wonder how could someone from Harvard say something so stupid. Then I realized that only someone from Harvard can say something so stupid
Over the time wants become needs; there is no distinction between wants & needs

Tom Preston-Werner, GitHub
When you have all techies in your company with no business background, you have a problem. When you hire an executive to solve this problem, you have two problems
Every feature you add in your product can potentially overshadow another one
People like good products, not a lot of features
Optimize for happiness
Strong culture in a company can be used as a hiring tool

David Rusenko - Founder, Weebly
Just by word of mouth, we got more user traction than by getting featured on Newsweek or TechCrunch
You can't succeed if you quit