Startups

“You scrutinize the check, looking again and again at the dollar amount. You make sure there are enough commas. That the date is correct. That the signature resembles the one you know. A part of you wants to drive all the way down to Santa Cruz, to the bank with the recessed lighting, the gleaming tile, the golden safe door half-open behind the counter, gleaming from the darkness like a yacht’s steering wheel. To change your shirt into something with a collar, maybe wear a tie—to dress up for the occasion. One point nine million dollars is a lot of money. You feel nervous handling it, like you’ve robbed it off someone else. Better to go to the closest bank you can find. Who cares if it’s in a strip mall in Los Gatos? You need to get this thing out of your hands, fast”

Excerpt From: Marc Randolph. “That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea.”

“Sachin and Binny began to make preparations for a Flipkart that would be many, many times its current size. They had already established a foothold in books. Now the company hungrily entered new categories. In the second half of 2010, Flipkart started selling mobile phones, music and film CDs, DVDs, and cameras. To launch these categories and to move to the next stage in its evolution, the company needed a capable management team. When a startup receives venture capital, investors insist that the company hire experienced leaders. Its new executives are expected to have previously worked at larger companies so they are able to bring to the startup their subject matter expertise or general management abilities.”

Excerpt From: Mihir Dalal. “Big Billion Startup: The Untold Flipkart Story.”

“For most of us, failure comes with baggage—a lot of baggage—that I believe is traced directly back to our days in school. From a very early age, the message is drilled into our heads: Failure is bad; failure means you didn’t study or prepare; failure means you slacked off or—worse!—aren’t smart enough to begin with. Thus, failure is something to be ashamed of. This perception lives on long into adulthood, even in people who have learned to parrot the oft-repeated arguments about the upside of failure. How many articles have you read on that topic alone? And yet, even as they nod their heads in agreement, many readers of those articles still have the emotional reaction that they had as children. They just can’t help it: That early experience of shame is too deep-seated to erase. All the time in my work, I see people resist and reject failure and try mightily to avoid it, because regardless of what we say, mistakes feel embarrassing. There is a visceral reaction to failure: It hurts.”

Excerpt From: Ed Catmull with Amy Wallace. “Creativity, Inc.: Overcoming the Unseen Forces That Stand in the Way of True Inspiration.” – Amazon Link

“Elon Musk recognized the extraordinary demands he placed on SpaceX’s early hires. He therefore decided to reward employees who spent the majority of 2004 traveling to Texas for engine tests, and elsewhere. Anyone who spent two hundred days away from home in 2004 received an extra two weeks of time off in 2005, and an all-expenses-paid vacation wherever he or she desired to go. “It was certainly a huge gesture,” said Jeremy Hollman. “Only maybe ten or fifteen of us were eligible, and it was a testament to just how much we were all traveling and sacrificing.” All Hollman needed to do was tell Mary Beth Brown where he wanted to go, and she took care of the rest.”

Excerpt From: Eric Berger. “Liftoff.”