Reed Hoffman: About the leaders and their qualities

Stanford course CS183B: How to start a startup . Started in 2012 under the leadership of Peter Thiel. In the fall of 2014, a new series of lectures by leading entrepreneurs and Y Combinator experts took place:



Usually, entrepreneurs are thought of as risk takers. When everyone cringes at the mere mention of this word, they encounter danger with their breasts. In any case, you will have to take a risk, but the risk is reasonable and deliberate - the ability to make such decisions is an integral part of the skill set of an outstanding entrepreneur. More promising risks are associated with promising and controversial ideas that most smart people disagree with. I took into account one of them, but there are others that can block my path. We must try to understand how to make the chances of success as high as possible, that is, to minimize the risks, how to take a deliberate risk, and not to be given to chance. This is the best picture that we found, and it combines all of the above.
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Now back to the investment declaration. Investment declaration is a list of provisions. For example, with LinkedIn, everyone, including companies, will benefit from being in a community of professionals. The first will be people who have an idea of ​​how such a community should look like, they will get used to it, and then there will be a mass market offering lucrative deals. This is what an investment declaration might look like. This is followed by the economy, hiring employees and the expansion of the company.

Do you have an investment declaration, do you think it strengthens faith in the idea or vice versa? Did the information coming from the market shake my confidence? Risks can be reduced, I will give you an example of how. In the early days of PayPal, the idea was to pay bills with Palm Pilots, because it is really easy, but we realized that such a system would not work even before the product was launched. But it turned out that I came to Max and Peter and told me what tests await us ...

Oh, this group doesn’t seem to know what Palm Pilots are. Palm Pilots - this is the first handheld computers (PDA). We lived where such gadgets were widespread, so we assumed that with a PDA you could even pay for lunch - it would be enough just to be able to split the bill between diners, but how many people at the table will actually have Palm Pilots? From zero to one, in every restaurant. Just thinking about what you can expect, if you continue to move in the same direction, you can manage to turn to the side and not enter the minefield. At this point, Max Legend (Max Legend) came up with the idea of ​​working by email. We decided that making payments by e-mail was a good idea, and turned around in this direction. When launching products, always think about how to minimize risks.



Another urgent question arises: what problems to solve? Resolve issues that can affect the project in the long term, or focus on solving directly emerging problems?

And again, the answer will be: do both that and that, only this time you also need to switch between them. You should always keep your vision in your head, because if you lose your direction, you risk being in a situation from which there will be no acceptable way out. At the same time, if you do not focus on solving the problems that are directly facing you, you can dig a hole for yourself.

You ask me how to combine everything? You need to ask yourself the questions: “What should I do today? Have I moved forward today? Did I move forward in a week? Is there much more to come? ”I will give you an example of how this works in finance and strategy. People often believe that the key to the success of a project is a strategy based on the production of a product: “I have an idea! She is a good, perhaps, we will create a company. ” But following the strategy is the release of the product, and in any sphere, consumer and corporate - any. At this stage, it doesn’t matter how good your product is, if you don’t get your users, you can start hammering nails into the coffin lid.

Distribution of the product is much more important than the product itself, and, as a rule, this is a priority task. Funding is even lower level - if you run out of money, all efforts will be in vain, despite the fact that the idea was good. When you create a startup with a good strategy, then, taking funds in one place, you should think about who can give the next batch of money. For this, I make plans and establish relationships with people who can assist the project. I do not start a business in order to live only until the next stage of financing - this is a project that needs to be built. I’m not the first day working with startups, and I’ll tell you that the work strategy is to take care of product distribution, provided that the funding comes in the right amount.



Well, do you think you can become outstanding leaders? To become a successful person, you definitely need to have super powers. It is useful to have leadership skills, to be able to create communities, to persuade people, and most importantly, it is useful to understand when you are moving in the right direction, and when you turned the wrong way. You need to believe in your investment declaration and not deviate from its provisions - doing everything correctly, you learn, unite people, gather them around you.



By tradition, I will show you five photos of white men who are great entrepreneurs [Slide]. But founders can be very different people and have talents in other areas of activity. Being the founders of completely different companies, they face and solve various types of problems. I do not mean racial differences, gender or any other, I mean differences in age and experience. Jack Ma (Jack Ma) was a teacher before you start doing what he does. This is an occasion for you to think.



The question is how to overcome all difficulties? How to gather people around you? How to convince them to unite?

Answers to these questions entirely depend on the situation. I tried to convey to you that there is no specific set of skills, there is only the ability to learn and adapt, to follow your vision, but to take into account information from all available sources in order to form communities around you. That's what makes you outstanding entrepreneurs.

The path of the entrepreneur lies in the fog on the ground with holes and cracks, and the ability to follow this path is decisive. What a turn will take things, only the madman knows. Though crazy ideas sometimes work. On this note, I would like to end the talk and answer your questions. I described the key points of the thinking of the leaders, and if there are no questions, then ... oh, please ask.