null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Surfaced during the prolonged Justice Department antitrust action against Microsoft from 1998 to 2001, Bill Gates outlines a strategy internally for Microsoft to not only enter the internet, but to dominate it in his famous ‘Internet Tidal Wave’ memo. Read the full memo here - https://sriramk.com/memos/billgates-tidalwave.pdf...
Nov 05, 2020•28 min•Ep. 53
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "Conflating what makes a platform work versus e.g. an infrastructure product can backfire and cause a team to have the wrong strategy for building a product or getting customers. These startups tend to fail." This is the audio version of Elad Gil's popular essay on The 3 Types of Platforms. Elad was the former Co-Founder/CEO of Color Genomics, Entrepreneur, Oper...
Oct 29, 2020•8 min•Ep. 52
null "I think that everybody is getting attuned to strategic communication in a way that was not happening before social media. NFX partner James Currier talks with Sarah Frier, who reports on social media companies for Bloomberg News from San Francisco. Her stories have earned her a reputation as an expert on how Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter make business decisions that affect their future and our society as well as being the author of 'NO FILTER: The Inside Story of Instagram.' S...
Oct 26, 2020•41 min•Ep. 51
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "Superpowers cut both ways. They may spur meteoric growth, but without enough self-awareness, they can just as easily lead to a startup’s undoing." As a founder, it's important to be your startup’s biggest advocate, but it’s also important to create strong self-awareness and rise above your own ego. Listen as Pete Flint explains how to detect your own B.S. and a...
Oct 22, 2020•16 min•Ep. 50
null All early-stage companies are in search of traction. It’s notable that the opposite of traction is distraction and top Founders have an inverse response to distraction. As the world around them gets more distracting, what they see is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to break out from their competitors and win. NFX partner James Currier talks with Nir Eyal, former instructor at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and author of the bestseller, “Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products.”...
Oct 19, 2020•46 min•Ep. 49
null On this episode of the NFX Podcast we have one of the most generative people in Silicon Valley, Chris Anderson. He was famously Editor in Chief at Wired for over a decade during an insanely influential time in tech. He also is an author of The Long Tail, Free, and Makers. Chris has since founded 3DR, an American company headquartered in Berkeley, California that makes enterprise drone software for construction, engineering, and mining firms, along with government agencies. In this episode, ...
Oct 14, 2020•36 min•Ep. 47
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "The 20s will see San Francisco face down some really big problems, and we’ll see if the city makes it out better or worse. But the wealth of social capital they’ve compounded will remain an undeniable asset to the tech community for a long time. " This is the audio version of Alex Danco's popular essay on Social Capital in Silicon Valley. Alex is currently head...
Oct 12, 2020•20 min•Ep. 48
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. The memo below was sent to the team at Tiny Speck, the makers of Slack, on July 31st, 2013. It had been a little under seven months since development began and was two weeks before the launch of Slack’s ‘Preview Release’. "When you want something really bad, you will put up with a lot of flaws. But if you do not yet know you want something, your tolerance will b...
Oct 08, 2020•14 min•Ep. 46
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. "The broad networks are everything to everyone, the niche ones are something special to a certain group." This is the audio version of Greg Isenberg's popular essay on The Unbundling of Reddit. Greg is a co-founder of Late Checkout, venture partner at Indicator Fund, and Growth advisor at TikTok. Previously he was the head of product strategy at WeWork and Found...
Sep 30, 2020•6 min•Ep. 45
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. A Must Listen for all Founders - audio version of Eugene Wei’s hugely popular essay on the role of status in product development. Eugene was a product leader at Amazon, Hulu, Flipboard, and Oculus. Read the full article here - https://www.eugenewei.com/blog/2019/2/19/status-as-a-service...
Sep 24, 2020•1 hr 35 min•Ep. 44
null NFX partner James Currier talks with Selina Tobaccowala - co-founder of Evite, CTO and President of SurveyMonkey, and cofounder of the fitness app Gixo. It’s rare to get a candid view into what happens behind the scenes of companies that break out from the pack - and the hard decisions that lead to their success. In this episode, James and Selina talk about: - Knowing when and how to sell your company - The difference between selling Evite vs. selling Gixo - Why to build strategic relations...
Sep 21, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep. 43
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by James Currier, General Partner at NFX. Read the full article here: https://www.nfx.com/post/psychology-winning-founders-downturns/
Sep 17, 2020•5 min•Ep. 42
null NFX partner James Currier talks with professor Tom Eisenmann about why, exactly, over 75% of startups fail. Tom has been teaching entrepreneurship at Harvard Business School for more than a decade and has uncovered patterns of startup failure that we want every Founder to hear -- so you can avoid making these same mistakes yourself.
Sep 14, 2020•53 min•Ep. 41
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Netflix’s memo on company culture on their employee website is geared toward those looking to join the company. Netflix's leadership outlines its values, company structure, communication style, and overall mission as a company and is widely regarded as a center of excellence with a strong culture in the tech industry. Read the full memo here - https://jobs.netfl...
Sep 10, 2020•25 min•Ep. 40
null Cyan Banister is an early stage investor in Uber, Niantic, SpaceX, many others. She’s a partner at Long Journey Ventures and spends most of her time dreaming about what the future could look like. In this NFX conversation with James Currier, they talk about the opportunities of AR, VR and the future of human connection. Highlights from the conversation: - Allow yourself to become obsessed with something. Really obsess about the product and dream about what it can become. - Invest in things ...
Sep 08, 2020•39 min•Ep. 39
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Aug 5, 2016 by Margaret Gould Stewart, VP of Product Design at Facebook. Read the full article on Medium here: https://medium.com/newco/how-a-single-conversation-with-my-boss-changed-my-view-on-delegation-and-failure-ae5376451c8d...
Sep 03, 2020•4 min•Ep. 38
null "Mobility as a service" is the idea of packaging together one person's entire portfolio of transportation options. Even if it’s a different mode of transportation for the first mile, the bulk of the journey, and for the last mile. Car, ferry, ride share, bike, scooter, whatever - all serviceable in the same app. This is the future that Nir Erz, CEO at Moovit, can see clearly, and why Intel bought Moovit for $900M. NFX partner Gigi Levy-Weiss sits down in Israel with Nir to discuss how Moovi...
Aug 31, 2020•39 min•Ep. 37
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Oct 6, 2017 by Max Mullen, Co-Founder of Instacart. Read the full article on Medium here: https://medium.com/the-product-co-op/how-to-run-a-product-brainstorm-666a90a0986d
Aug 24, 2020•4 min•Ep. 36
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Oct 2, 2018 by Julie Zhuo, Former VP Product Design at Facebook & Co-Founder of Inspirit. Read the full article on Medium here: https://medium.com/the-year-of-the-looking-glass/how-to-be-strategic-f6630a44f86b...
Aug 24, 2020•8 min•Ep. 35
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on May 12, 2000 by Joel Spolsky, Co-Founder of Trello & Stack Overflow. Read the full article here: https://www.joelonsoftware.com/2000/05/12/strategy-letter-i-ben-and-jerrys-vs-amazon/
Aug 24, 2020•15 min•Ep. 34
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Oct 16, 2017 by Dharmesh Shah, Co-Founder & CTO of HubSpot. Read the full article on Medium here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/aligning-vectors-how-optimize-impact-dharmesh-shah/?trackingId=AyxTmFVyQ7iCFm6409fYeA%3D%3D...
Aug 24, 2020•9 min•Ep. 33
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder & General Partner at Hustle Fund. Read the full article here: https://elizabethyin.com/2019/05/17/15-annoying-things-that-vcs-say-or-ask-and-how-to-think-about-them/...
Aug 24, 2020•14 min•Ep. 32
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Sep 9, 2019 by Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance. Read the full article on Medium here: https://marker.medium.com/creativity-is-the-new-productivity-d287d6ad7533
Aug 24, 2020•13 min•Ep. 31
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Mar 15, 2018 by Sean Ellis, Founder & CEO of GrowthHackers. Read the full article here: seanellis.me
Aug 24, 2020•6 min•Ep. 30
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one. It’s been more than 10 years since Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote a long and personal “owner’s manual” for shareholders detailing their hopes and worries about taking Google public in 2004, and sharing the company’s ethos. Read the full memo here - https://abc.xyz/investor/fo...
Aug 24, 2020•23 min•Ep. 29
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In October 2006, Yahoo Senior Vice President Brad Garlinghouse wrote an internal memo, urging the company to narrow its focus and clarify its vision. The memo, now famously called the "Peanut Butter Manifesto," pointed out Yahoo's lack of focus, using peanut butter as a metaphor for spreading its resources too thinly. Read the full memo here - https://sriramk.co...
Aug 24, 2020•12 min•Ep. 28
null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by James Currier, General Partner at NFX. Read the full article here: https://www.nfx.com/post/building-strong-companies-the-no-politics-rule/
Aug 24, 2020•5 min•Ep. 27
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Aug 24, 2020•9 min•Ep. 26
null At NFX, we dig into network effects companies and their founding stories, so we emailed Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist. Craigslist is the purest example of a 2-sided network effect and has remained stronger than ever for the past 20+ years. NFX partner James Currier had a chance to sit down with Craig to talk and catch up. Craig handed over the operations of Craigslist in 2000 and is now more focused on his philanthropy, but when we catch up, we get to discuss his mental models fo...
Aug 13, 2020•12 min•Ep. 25
null Speed is often the secret weapon, especially when adjusting to and tackling a crisis. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement, eight-time entrepreneur-turned-educator Steve Blank joins NFX partner James Currier and shares counterintuitive advice for how startups should be thinking right now. Steve says "don't waste a good crisis" and discusses how to find opportunity in disruption. He's changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught, how science is commercialized, ...
Aug 05, 2020•21 min•Ep. 24
