I had the privilege of meeting PG in 2013, the last year he was fully hands-on with the batch at YC. (that is me the awkward picture)
In his latest essay, "Founder Mode", PG talks about how and how not to take company-building advice.
Below are some of my favorite quotes:
"As Airbnb grew, Brian Chesky got the advice "hire good people and give them room to do their jobs." He followed this advice and the results were disastrous"
"Why was everyone telling these founders the wrong thing?...what they were being told was how to run a company you hadn't founded — how to run a company if you're merely a professional manager." – In your journey as a founder, you'll hear a lot of unsolicited advice from VCs and consultants, all well intended, but often wrong.
"VCs who haven't been founders themselves don't know how founders should run companies," – Beyond fundraising, it's hard to give company-building advice, if you have not built a company yourself. That's like giving parenting advice when you've never had kids.
💡 Tip: From VCs, only take fundraising advice. Only go to founders for all company-building (hiring, products, ops) advice.
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This post was originally shared by Edrizio De La Cruz on Linkedin.