20VC: Why Great Companies are Defined by How Many Things They Say No To, Why Being First Does Not Matter & Why Market Over Traction or Team is the Most Important Thing with Guillermo Rauch, Founder & CEO @ Vercel
Episode description
Guillermo Rauch is the Founder and CEO @ Vercel, giving developers the frameworks, workflows, and infrastructure to build a faster, more personalized Web. To date, Guillermo has raised $312M from Accel, Bedrock, Greenoaks, GV and more. Prior to founding Vercel, Guillermo co-founded LearnBoost and Cloudup where he served the company as CTO through its acquisition by Automattic in 2013.
In Today's Episode with Guillermo Rauch We Discuss:
1. From Argentina to SF: The Boy Making Money Online:
- How did Guillermo first get into computers and start making money online?
- Does Guillermo still believe the US and SF offers the same opportunities it did when he came?
- Did Guillermo feel the weight of responsibility of providing for his family at a young age?
2. Timing, Markets and Narrative Violations:
- Why does Guillermo believe it does not matter being first but being right?
- Why does Guillermo believe the most important thing for a company is market selection?
- Why does Guillermo believe it is crucial that founders and companies have "narrative violations"?
3. The Future of AI:
- What model will win in the future; open or closed?
- Where does the value accrue; startups or incumbents?
- How will the SaaS business model change in a world of AI?
4. Silicon Valley's Most Successful Angel You Did Not Know:
- What are some of Guillermo's biggest lessons from angel investing?
- What is his single biggest miss? How has it changed how he thinks?
- What have been his biggest hits? How did they impact how he thinks about what it takes to win?