Startup School: Michael Mendel and Chris Sacca
This weekend, I visited Y Combinator's Startup School in Cambridge, MA. It was awesome.
The night before, I attended a reception with some attendees and presenters. This allowed for some schmoozing with other potential founders and, of course, the speakers. Typically, these were surrounded by scores of kids, so getting to talk to them required interrupting someone else. I managed to listen in to conversations with Stephen Wolfram (the creator of Mathematica), Michael Mandel (of BusinessWeek) and Paul Graham (the organizer). Still, the most interesting attendee was Joel Spolsky. I have been a big fan of his articles on Joel on Software for a long time, so I was happy to have the opportunity to chat with him. I found it rather surprising that he was there: After all, his main interest would be running his business, not talking to young startup founders.
The next day was full of back-to-back presentations. They were of high quality: Langley Steinert of TripAdvisor, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Paul Graham, and Olin Shivers of SmartLeaf all held very good talks. Even the VC guy, Stan Reiss, seemed trustworthy.
There were two speakers I found especially interesting, partly because they weren't really about founding a company, but the encompassing scheme of things.
Michael Mandel on US Advantages
The first one was Michael Mandel, the chief economist at BusinessWeek. As an economist, his job is to look at the economy as a whole. Interestingly, he didn't seem concerned about the US trade deficit, the holes in the budget, and the savings rate. He wasn't even concerned about the "boom, bust, boom, bust" cycle of today's economies.
His interest is startups, since they are the only elements of the economy that drive things forward. Big companies typically fear innovation and competition, so they won't risk doing the things that startups do. In his world view, the US has two unique advantages:
1. There is a working system of Venture Capital.
2. People are willing to work more than in other countries. You can't achieve much innovation in 35 hours per week.
I agree that these are important points, but they are slightly incorrect: VC is gaining a foothold in Europe, even if there are no big-name firms yet that have a strong track record. His second point stems from a misunderstanding of European work culture: Sure, union members in big European car plants do work 35 hours a week. In contrast, I don't know of technology people in Europe who put in that little effort.
Mandel pointed out that the unique US advantage is not technology, as it is very easily transferrable to other countries. This point I agree with: The whole trend of outsourcing to India proves this point.
Chris Sacca Talk
Chris is BizDev person at Google who is, among other things, in charge of deciding which small start-ups to acquire. At startup school, he found an attentive audience.
He explained what he thought were good startup ideas. In his view, these were concepts where you could "Go Big!", i.e. make a product that solves a problem that many people have and therefore can reap huge rewards in the long run. Being "Cheap to demo!" was important to him, as a presentable product will get you bought quicker. Also, Google still believes that "Geeks rock!"; they are the ones who have ideas and drive the technology forward, not the marketers and business people.
A large part of his talk, however, was devoted to discussing Google's culture. He talked in length about the value system originally put in place by Larry and Sergey and the various perks that Google offers its employees.
I found this talk to be very good and I think it resonated well with the audience. He seemed approachable and encouraged attendees to come chat with him after the event. As I walked out of the auditorium, people were forming circles around Chris.
Dislaimer: I was an intern at Google last year, but never met Chris. Also, I'd like to add that what he said was true (as of last year), although I never actually believed the swimming pool would see the light of day.
Some Final Thoughts
Holding this conference was a great idea by Y Combinator and Paul Graham, and they I'm sure they invested a great amount of effort into organizing it.
The turnout was incredible: Harvard's Science Center B, with seating for 500, seemed almost completely full. It seems like there is a strong interest in the US to build startups. This is great: After all, as Mike Mandel suggested, these future founders are the people that drive innovation and long-term economic growth.
The night before, I attended a reception with some attendees and presenters. This allowed for some schmoozing with other potential founders and, of course, the speakers. Typically, these were surrounded by scores of kids, so getting to talk to them required interrupting someone else. I managed to listen in to conversations with Stephen Wolfram (the creator of Mathematica), Michael Mandel (of BusinessWeek) and Paul Graham (the organizer). Still, the most interesting attendee was Joel Spolsky. I have been a big fan of his articles on Joel on Software for a long time, so I was happy to have the opportunity to chat with him. I found it rather surprising that he was there: After all, his main interest would be running his business, not talking to young startup founders.
The next day was full of back-to-back presentations. They were of high quality: Langley Steinert of TripAdvisor, Apple co-founder Steve Wozniak, Paul Graham, and Olin Shivers of SmartLeaf all held very good talks. Even the VC guy, Stan Reiss, seemed trustworthy.
There were two speakers I found especially interesting, partly because they weren't really about founding a company, but the encompassing scheme of things.
Michael Mandel on US Advantages
The first one was Michael Mandel, the chief economist at BusinessWeek. As an economist, his job is to look at the economy as a whole. Interestingly, he didn't seem concerned about the US trade deficit, the holes in the budget, and the savings rate. He wasn't even concerned about the "boom, bust, boom, bust" cycle of today's economies.
His interest is startups, since they are the only elements of the economy that drive things forward. Big companies typically fear innovation and competition, so they won't risk doing the things that startups do. In his world view, the US has two unique advantages:
1. There is a working system of Venture Capital.
2. People are willing to work more than in other countries. You can't achieve much innovation in 35 hours per week.
I agree that these are important points, but they are slightly incorrect: VC is gaining a foothold in Europe, even if there are no big-name firms yet that have a strong track record. His second point stems from a misunderstanding of European work culture: Sure, union members in big European car plants do work 35 hours a week. In contrast, I don't know of technology people in Europe who put in that little effort.
Mandel pointed out that the unique US advantage is not technology, as it is very easily transferrable to other countries. This point I agree with: The whole trend of outsourcing to India proves this point.
Chris Sacca Talk
Chris is BizDev person at Google who is, among other things, in charge of deciding which small start-ups to acquire. At startup school, he found an attentive audience.
He explained what he thought were good startup ideas. In his view, these were concepts where you could "Go Big!", i.e. make a product that solves a problem that many people have and therefore can reap huge rewards in the long run. Being "Cheap to demo!" was important to him, as a presentable product will get you bought quicker. Also, Google still believes that "Geeks rock!"; they are the ones who have ideas and drive the technology forward, not the marketers and business people.
A large part of his talk, however, was devoted to discussing Google's culture. He talked in length about the value system originally put in place by Larry and Sergey and the various perks that Google offers its employees.
I found this talk to be very good and I think it resonated well with the audience. He seemed approachable and encouraged attendees to come chat with him after the event. As I walked out of the auditorium, people were forming circles around Chris.
Dislaimer: I was an intern at Google last year, but never met Chris. Also, I'd like to add that what he said was true (as of last year), although I never actually believed the swimming pool would see the light of day.
Some Final Thoughts
Holding this conference was a great idea by Y Combinator and Paul Graham, and they I'm sure they invested a great amount of effort into organizing it.
The turnout was incredible: Harvard's Science Center B, with seating for 500, seemed almost completely full. It seems like there is a strong interest in the US to build startups. This is great: After all, as Mike Mandel suggested, these future founders are the people that drive innovation and long-term economic growth.
2 Comments:
I hope you learned more than you are letting on. Were any secrets to startup success revealed?
I think the best secret to success revealed was "don't run out of money". :-)
Also noticed a mistake: Michael Mandel's name is mistyped in the title. It's Mandel, not Mendel.
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