Thread by @chrishlad, A MASTER operator and investor: @rabois Yesterday: @chamath’s SPAC merger with @Opendoor [...]

A MASTER operator and investor: @rabois

Yesterday: @chamath’s SPAC merger with @Opendoor

Today I inhaled Keith’s podcasts:

• @APompliano
• @eriktorenberg
• @Jason
• @david_perell
• @Patrick_oshag
• @AdamDraper

Here are 10 of his most IMPACTFUL ideas

1/ Who is @rabois?

• Political Science at Stanford, Harvard Law

• Exec at @PayPal @LinkedIn @Square

• PayPal Mafia with @elonmusk, @peterthiel, @reidhoffman, @mlevchin

• Investor @Airbnb, @YouTube, @stripe, @DoorDash

• Partner @foundersfund, Founder @Opendoor

2/ Barrels vs. Ammunition

• Barrels: people that take ideas from conception to shipping

• Ammunition: people that can execute a given task

• A company’s output is tied to the number of barrels

Find barrels by constantly expanding scope of responsibilities for employees

3/ Hiring

• Hire aptitude for upside and experience for mitigating risk

• Focus on finding and hiring undiscovered talent

• Interview question: “If you were a product, how would you describe your value proposition”

4/ @rabois’s Investment Criteria

What is anomalous?

What ‘secret’ is the company predicated on?

Could this be 1 of the most important companies on the planet?

What is the accumulating advantage?

Can the founder attract the right talent?

Our investor comparative advantage?

5/ Delayed Gratification

• Keys to success aren’t secret, they’re just painful

• It’s all about deferring immediate for delayed gratification

• “Can you trade long-term gratification for short term sacrifice, and can you compress the feedback loop?”

6/ Accumulating Advantages: as a company gets better/grows, it becomes easier to run

• Eventually B-B+ players can run the company, because it’s so strong you don’t need heroic efforts of talented people

• Why does it become easier? Trust and increased credibility

7/ Successful people

• People that change the world have extreme talent in 1-2 dimensions, then a screw loose in 1-2 dimensions

• Excellent at prioritization and allocating their time

• Ask “How and why are they successful”: Decompose it and try to emulate that

8/ Valuing your time

• Be aware of what you’re consuming and how to get the most possible leverage out of that time

• Spend time with people that are smarter and more successful than you

• Consume more content that’s stood the test of time

9/ “People who are naive about markets, do better than those with experience.”

• @patrickc with @stripe
• @elonmusk knew nothing about cars before @Tesla
• @rabois knew nothing about real estate before @Opendoor

With industry experience, less ‘WHY?’ questions

10/ You don’t discover a startup market, you create it.

“You imagine a better future, you create it, and then you sell tickets” - @rabois

Very different than the @ycombinator method

11/ If you want to learn more from @rabois, he started a short form podcast on @NuggetAudio called “How to Build an Iconic Company”