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Reid Hoffman, Ben Casnocha - The Start-up Of You

Hello create about well we're delighted to be here and we're going to spend about an hour going through some of the key concepts of the start of the view our book on career strategy that came out about a year ago and what we're going to do is I'm going to start by uh uh describing how reading I got inspired to do this book what what what's happening in the world that caused us toe wantto develop a new way of thinking about career strategy and then we'll walk through some of the key concepts that from the start of the view so thank you for uh coming today and thank you for listening on the internet the key thing that we are I'm trying to do is figure out how to help folks with an understanding of how the new world of work works and part of the I've had this idea for some time because a lot of the kind of career strategies or roughly um dependent and we're going to go into this but on the kind of a career ladder a career escalator but that that mode has changed and the question is how to...

help people understand this how to help people understand what is the what is the way to think about howto work how to attack a career we started thinking about this purely as an initially a college thing and then we realize that it actually applies to everyone andi, I've actually even had folks of mine who are partners that my firm, a greylock and other place say, oh, actually, I was reading your book. And actually page forty five was really useful to make so way hope this is useful to all of you as well indeed. Okay, so, uh so the genesis of the book. So, you know, for the last forty to fifty years, the way careers have worked in america, the function kind of like a escalator, right? The job market's been defined like a well oiled escalator. For many generations in america, folks would go to college, get a college degree to be among the rare elite that would obtain a college degree and upon graduation pick from one of a handful of predefined career tracks. You kind of pick finance or manufacturing or technology, and then you work hard to land an entry level job at a goldman sachs or g e or gm or an ibm. And upon landing this entry level job, the way it worked is if you worked hard and war particularly unlucky, you kind of get whisked up the organizational hierarchy, right? You landed entry level job in an ibm, you work hard, you put in your dues and slowly but surely you accumulate increased levels of seniority and experience and over the course of your career you may change jobs a few times may change companies a few times but you're going to stay in that that very stable career track until you and kind of ride this escalator up until you reach the top of the escalator and step off uh into a government financed social security system or company financed pension system on and that's the way it's worked for a very long time and the natural gravity of that escalator has really been the under opinions of the american dream which is that every generation of americans enjoys a higher standard of living than the ones that parents had that's been true for many generations but for the first time ever for the first time in many years in america young people today people in their twenties on average will not enjoy a higher standard of living on the one their parents and that's because this career escalator which has guided the way we think about careers for so long is now jammed at every level so people coming out of college today can't find jobs youth unemployment in america is at its highest level since world war two people in the middle of their career in the middle that escalator are finding themselves stuck and promotion list limbo americans today are registering their lowest levels of career satisfaction since the data for started getting recorded and the people at the top of the escalator people in their fifties and sixties who historically have been, you know, preparing beach plans and ready to retire and record numbers are having to rejoin the workforce and reinvent themselves and acquire new skills in order to remain competitive and they find their company pension exploded or the government social security net no longer reliable. And so this jamming of the career escalator has forced us to all reconsider a lot of basic assumptions about how the world of work works about the economy, about the labor market, and the causes of this jamming have to do with technology and globalization to create a world for all of us, which increasingly resembles the silicon valley ecosystem and part of the thing when you look at the kind of career escalator as a model, a lot of our strategy is a lot of how we think about even, you know, kind of in the last couple of decades about how you manage your career continues that the this well, like, for example, discover your passions when you're you know, when you go to college, I'm gonna know the job will work out. You know? You just need to figure out what is your particular passion about because of the jobs for everything, uh, there's a question of, uh, you know, in terms of how they career escalator has gotten jammed, is that you know when when you say we have will now have longer life spans and industries or changing in ways that are much faster that says all right, well, what happens when I get to sixty and actually I haven't actually, you know, fully, you know, and I need more economics how do I make that happen? And because the the careers closed damage changing the compact between essentially companies and employees and it used to be that the employees didn't have to think about how to invest in themselves, they would basically just kind of go ok, you know, I'm here there's a there's a pattern that's run by this company and then of course it more to ok it's not just one company and several but it's still critic career path by which I'd be trained to do things that would be you know I'd be sent out on a management class or on a training technology class, but what has changed is that since the industry's air changing in a way that that's no longer cable apple is that ah no longer functional is that people have to learn how to invest in themselves, they have to learn how to essentially drive how it is that I my value as a as a worker is an employee of the way that I drive my curry is much more like a business then as an employee in terms of how I think about it now you may dio kind of you spent you may still spend your entire career at one company but in doing that you were still thinking about yourself as a business as you go through it and so part of um what we had realized this is part of why ben and I came together to do this book was that we felt that people didn't have the thie mindsets and the skills that were appropriate to this new world because the mind set of skills are essentially and entrepreneurs mindsets and skills and that there was nothing that kind of that that kind of made that easily accessible to people who weren't already deeply embedded in entrepreneurial communities and so we did is we sat down we talked about it we said about let's uh let's take the advice that we give entrepreneurs for their startups and let's then compacted for what is good for individuals you know is a bunch of things like resemble how you raise venture finance or other kinds of things which aren't appropriate individuals but there's a bunch of things about how you direct essentially entrepreneurial company that's the same way that you direct your own work life your own business life and that we then said all right, well let's the book is an attempt to still those key concepts, those key mindsets and those kind of techniques for how to be entrepreneurial in your work life doesn't it might start a company that's great good bye should work that you might never start a company. The advice is still useful in terms of how you uh in terms of how you perceive and so part of the way that we think is very urgent it's how you understand we should move to the you know the new world of work is that industries are changing it faster and faster rates so business john seely brown, john hagel have this expression called the topple rate, which is the rate at which companies drop out of the s and p five hundred that's doubled in the last two decades in terms of speed, which is ah simple measure of industry transformation you can just look it up whole wide variety of industries in terms of how the modern kind of technological acceleration which globalization is part of, um is transforming what is viable industry in any particular region of the world. You can look at newspapers, you know, you look good automobiles, you looking out large number of industries and that transformations happening. And so part of how the career escalator got jammed is that businesses could no longer say well, I have a you know, fifty year, forty year stable path that just works this way because the businesses themselves they're changing and they need to adapt, and those and those changes are trickle down to the level of the individual. Yes, that's I think a key point that that we're making is that the's tectonic changes of globalization and technology, of changing all these industries and all these companies and now that's affecting every individual in every individual's career journey on forcing every individual to be more entrepreneurial and tow. Learn from silicon valley and how silicon valley entrepreneurs build amazing companies and conditions of uncertainty and change and apply those strategies to their very life. They're very career will show a quick video that explains a bit more about the idea what happened, where companies supposed to guarantee jobs for life was the government supposed to rescue everyone where universities supposed to grant degrees that promised unlimited opportunity world has changed there's plenty of blame to go around, but the solution is within you. All humans were born entrepreneurs in the caves. We were all self employed, finding food, feeding ourselves that's how human history began and that's the entrepreneurial spirit we must rediscover way have it within ourselves to take control of our career, build the future. We want weii do this by looking at the lessons of today's entrepreneurs and applying them to our lives, how we adapt, how we develop a competitive edge, how we take smart risks how we use our networks you see today's challenge is actually present enormous opportunity were made to survive almost anything you can invent yourself and invent the future startup is you gotta love the hand you use bumps every time, all right, so that's the backdrop for why we're here that's the problem that we're presenting in the problem that we want to talk about how to solve and for the balance of our talk we're going tio get into a few specific strategies for what each of us in the room and on the internet, khun due to take control of our career and and accelerate our career today. So, uh, we're going to go through a series of ideas look at what entrepreneurs and silicon valley due to build amazing companies on then map the idea mathy advice to an individual career context. So the first, the first day we're going to talk about his competition you want to get this off? Yeah, so one of the things that's kind of mistake from the old how the world has changed is you now no longer just think, oh, I discovered my own passions I kind of I sit in a room and I meditate about what I'm good at and I just could do that you have to think about that you are there along with thousands of other people, right? And so for interesting jobs there's always competition there's a question of how you get product market fit relative that competition and so you have to think about what is your competitive edge and the only way you can really describe figure out competitive edge it is when you're thinking about the market and industry around you, you're thinking about what the competitors look like in terms of how you essentially kind of say, well, how am I best that that how my good at that now? There's a lot of ways frequently competition like saying, well, ok, how it might be olympic athlete, how my, the gold medalists at this is actually not what is generally required that's in a few individuals or a few companies protective frequently, competition is local it's a question of well, of the folks that you know, this business needs the higher or in providing this service as a small a small business, what is my competitive set look like? And then how do I have a competitive differentiation against that stat? And what was your differentiation reid's starting linked in? Because entrepreneurs are the best in the world, I think thinking about how do you do something cheaper, faster, better that other people, uh, what was the what was the theory when you're starting like that in terms of the competitive landscape and how you well, there's a couple things who one is and actually buy more than one always useful, but the first was in two thousand two when I left papal I was originally thinking I was going to spend the year taking vacations that would like to do that a some point on, but what I realized is that the valley had decided that the consumer internet was it was over us now focus on clean tack, it was focused on enterprise software, and then all of the interesting consumer underplays head had been played, and I realize that actually one was that wasn't the case, and so I knew that in starting a consumer internet business back then in doing that, I would be doing that when there wasn't a lot of competition, I would have the headway to start to get to get out of head, start running before other industries, other entrepreneurs realize the consumer and it was back on and started running along the same path. The second thing was is I realized that there was going to be this revolution in kind of in networks and networking I had invested in friendster, and I'd seen what was happening with kind of social networking in my states came along facebook and I was like, well, actually I think that's all awesome I want to invest in those companies, and I think those entrepreneurs very strong but I also want to create a professional network and because I thought that the context of how we navigate our work life and how we navigated personal life are actually very different and that that could be on area where you also get differentiation cause I specialize specifically in the world of work and with that I kind of then said I know there's a whole set of competitive differentiation down the train was when we started it there were other companies that it said well yes, professional networks are relevant but the relevant cos they're not relevant for individuals so they were all enterprise sales and these role essentially a set of choices to hone it so that I essentially created I chose a valuable space and then I focused on in a way that I could develop competitive damages the people don't know and there's one actually other thing I would say this is that frequently a cz part of investing or being in entrepreneur for a high impact high scale business, what you're being his contrarian and right in terms of how you do this so example when I went around linked in one of the reasons people thought because usually have very early stages of company people think ok like if everyone had that idea then there'll be tons of competition and even if you're very good to be very difficult to get through the press and actually break out into something new one of the things that made everyone skeptic what linked in and the very beginning was this well, a network product that's really not valuable one on one person and it's not valuable into people they know each other etcetera so you have to get to when a back of the envelope was five hundred thousand to a million people in order to make linked in uh uh tab begin having the value propositions that we now have today and the thing that I knew controlling the right that other people didn't I knew that people back in two thousand three I would be curious enough to explore and say, hey, there's a new site I know doesn't really have a value proposition meat from right now, but I'll play with it and I'll see what it is and that I could get to that first million people tyre lee on that basis and that was another place of competitive french ation because I made both a on insight that that could happen and also took the risk and the gamble that we'll talk more about this later. And so what I love about that story is if it wasn't like it wasn't do you locked yourself in your your bedroom, closed your eyes and thought deeply about what a killer business idea could be? It was assessing all of these other companies thinking about the differences that exist so there's, certainly a focus on the market realities, but you kind of quickly said the word papal, uh, and consumer internet, but I think I started thinking you're also playing to some existing assets that you were building a well, so is part of how you should think about way outlined. This in the book is that there's essentially assets, market realities, aspirations, aspirations, his goal in terms of what do you want to go market realities is the is the shape of the industry competition, the availability of where you go and the assets or how you get there and part of, uh, you know, like, for example, one piece that bends reminding me of his well, having made some money a papal, even though the two thousand two two thousand three financing market was very difficult for concern our companies, I could essentially fund linked in for the first year myself that gave me a competitive differentiation asset, but the more important assets aren't the hard assets, you know, money, that's something those air great and you actually absolutely need those in certain kinds of context, but the soft assets of the networks of who you're connected to what your skill set is what you know. So for example, by having done papal, I understood vire ality, I also happen to have a a broad network of folks who understood how to build consumer internet businesses I also had a sense of kind of what was going on generally in the industry and how to call you know who to call order solved which kinds of problems and one of the things that's really important when you when you think about the kind of your competitive edge is both or what your assets now but also how do you have all those assets and usually the assets that you should be most investing in our your soft assets which is a combination of people and skills because those things act really persists and help you get directed and targeted because you say ok, well you know what is the for example if you're doing an entrepreneur like I was doing with lengthen what's the key problem to solve because usually in a start up there are you're the metaphor used for startups throws himself off a cliff in the assemble an airplane on the way down basically means you're immortal situation and there's lots of fires burning up to focus on solving a couple of them well your network you're soft assets helps you with that because you get this kind of collective intelligence about can I look uh what are the key problems which ones can you ignore that's really important and then how do you invest in them? I want to amplify one thing that reading was saying so he so there's a papal assets that were being built consumer web that you could apply that went in there the market realities you have an aspiration to build a consumer internet professional network one of the interesting things is we mathis career strategy because the end we're talking about competition because our thesis is that every individual needs to have a sense of what their competitive edge is in labor market what do you do different or better than the person sitting next to doesn't mean you're better and an objective whole sense but in a specific professional sense how are you differentiating the market? Uh and entrepreneurs do this brilliantly by thinking about their their existing assets, their aspirations and the market realities around them. One of the things we learned one doing the start up of you and thinking about career strategy is they're actually about their three really common pieces of advice that people get when they ask the question what should I do with my life? Which is another way of thinking about the competitive advantage question what should I be doing what's my edge there are a set of folks that say play to your strengths all right this is a common piece of device that's come out in the last few years for people marcus buckingham and others say think about your strengths and played your strengths right played your assets then there are a set of people again a very new piece of advice which is follow your passion, which in the last few years come very popular advice very, very new phenomenon in the self help genre but follow your aspirations think about what your passion is and go do that and then there's a third piece of common wisdom which is kind of what I call it the tiger where a lot of people call the tiger mom approach, which is I don't care what you think you're good at or what your passion is go figure out where the market realities are, where the market needs are and go do that so for example, in america today there's a nursing a nursing shortage and so that the tiger mom devices hey go become a nurse right? Go get a nursing degree because that's where all the demand is in the market and there's and so what's what troublesome about this evolution of career advice is that thinking about any one of those in isolation is wildly insufficient? All right, if you only think about your assets if you would only thought about the papal assets that were being developed uh that's fine, but what if there's actually not a market need what those assets ask that's translated to or if you only think about your passion? What if you can't monetize that passion very well? What if you're not very good at that passion the only thing about the market reality sure there's a market need, but what if you're not very good at filling that need? And if you don't really like it, you're not able to do it very long. Orwell and so the thing we try to do with the start of the u s he actually do you think about all three of those things when asking the question, what kind of business should I start, or what should I do with my life as the entrepreneur of my own life? The ceo of my career, I think about all three of those things in the intersection of your assets, aspirations and market realities, and putting those three things together are critical because it's a question of you do want to play to your strengths so that by the way, those those things were right to understand them, how did amplify them development so forth? Because that's where you can possibly could competitive edge. But if you don't, if you if you just say the strength like, for example, I remember talking to one of my family and I was like, well, I like playing video games, so I'm going to go become a videogame designer and you like ok, that that's insufficient you have to think about like, how is it that you can actually do that much better? How is what's the market demand for that is a function and then you want you want to integrate though you might be passionate about it but you want to integrate all those into a coherent plan and the plan doesn't just start with like one of the mistakes that people make and well look att I actually don't know planning what I guess is an optional section here, but one of things is don't uh don't think about when you when you're doing the planning don't just think about like, okay here's a forty year plan, you do an intense plan for a couple of years with they thought about where that's all going, but you have to re evaluate it as you go and you re evaluate this combination of, you know, like your passions can change hopefully your your strengths, your your assets are increasing and the market realities are for sure changing. So you have to have a cycle in terms of how you're thinking about this and revisiting it and one of the mistakes I frequently feel that when people are doing this, they're trying to make will make this decision once in this zone will be for my rest of my life like no, no, no make an effective decision right now execute on it for a couple of years and be paying attention to it as you go so one of the things that I think is interesting is you created um linked in to connect people globally and digitally because of both and this just sort of recent intro talked a lot about the physical like being able to pick up the phone and call someone and to be that transcends the digital part how how important for you guys is the start of a view as it relates to like a personal network of people you can call of mentors people you have like on boots on the ground relationships with real relationships with people who are your allies is essential god we do have a question here in the audience if you want to stand up they'll be awesome but uh jonathan howard I'm starting a medical travel company for helping people do medical travel without the risk so if the intersection his strengths passion and demand I think strengths and past or something you can look inward and sort of figure out or ask your friends but it seems like you guys have figured out some good ways to do the market research side I think that's something people have less access to can you talk a little more about how you approach that? Let read answer but you also said you're doing a start up without the risk medical travel will come in with lower risk the loo interest for the custom lower and I thought I heard without later simple dress bryant who is it never goes zero actually um so uh well the key thing and some of this will be we're going to do networks in the next section but usually the best form of doing this sort of thing is to go fine look for them when I start linked in uh I basically went to every smart person I knew and I talked to him about it because one of them you learn is you get their perspective and frequently you know, two thirds what said they don't really understand as well as you do and store then you have to go to sort through it but you're looking for you're gonna that one that one but you're looking for key insights you'd take it very seriously everything that the but the smart people you know are telling you and by the way they also and then introduce you to other people so it's not just one degrees two degrees and you're saying who else should I talk to you again gets a network that, um that process if you're genuinely open mind and you have to be one of the phrases I used for entrepreneurship is flexible persistence which is you're both have a vision and a mission and you have a conviction and you're going you persist you're also flexible about it, which is you're really thinking about well is a really customer demand was the competition look like is a really coherent product here and you have to keep that agility between them as you're talking people because frequently find is entrepreneurs go no, I know I have this idea yeah, yeah, I know you guys don't get it and I'm just going to prove it to you, in which case you khun frequently drive off a cliff, not be hearing the signals from talking to people the way that you should be. On the other hand, it shouldn't be like, all right, you get that that idea I should just change right? Because you have this vision of this thing on the people don't see but it's primarily I find talking to people assumptions, not google search to do market research in the market reality, so that can be helpful. I get to an extent right how many nursing positions are open, that kind of thing, but the critical intelligence that informs the most important career decisions almost always come from attacking someone else's brand and it's, a combination of people who expertise there and people who have remote expertise not necessary directly because that will give you some breath and all of it every individual protective could be wrong, but it's, your job is the intra priority integrated actually, one more riff on this because we're kind of talking about network intelligence uh I think that they're three kinds of people you talk to you for advice on career life decisions one are people that are domain experts in the area. So travel health whatever they're experts in that area then there are people who know you personally really well so for example there's a domain expert then there's your mom uh and then there are just generally really smart, insightful people that may not be an expert that it may may not know you well but could have a perspective to add and the order in which you you probe your network for advice could be as follows first talk to domain experts to get a sense of options should I go become a nurse? Okay, what's it like to be a nurse you know what is that day today look like ok, should I go to nevada because there's unusual shortage in nevada, that kind of thing talk to experts and then go talk to people you know who know you really well hey mom, here are my three options which do which option do you think is best for me? All right, that requires actually more personal knowledge of who you are as opposed to necessarily the market landscape and then cross check your decision with a super smart outsider so there can actually be a system is I think what entrepreneurs do extremely well on why we highlight them in the book is it's not kind of random? Hey, you're a guy off the street what do think about the lengthen idea is actually a process through which ugo you go through to collect really diable network intelligence network tells a speaking of network irks let's talk about networks so, um, basically, one of the things is, you know, part of the idea behind lengthen as we all live in a networked world, uh, whether not we fully recognize it or not, and most people don't realize how deep that is a function. So for example, when you think about living in a network world, you think about such concepts of how am I going to be found by the right people around opportunities? Not just how am I going to go find people? But how is it possible for other people? Find me now? Most people kind of say, well, who would ever be looking for me and it's like, well, actually, people out there looking to solve problems? I mean, it could just even be hiring people, but looking for, you know, co founders for a start up looking for finance, looking for advice, all these sorts of things, this this this is critical when you think about a networked world is not just you is an agent but also you participating in a network where there's a bunch of people around you who are all acting we're all looking for things who are looking for people and and what's more a part of what that happens is as we help each other way can help each other find the exact like if you find the right piece of insight on starting a business or the right piece of insight on becoming an earth that can accept that that can change the curve of your business or your career in terms of how you operate and s o networks are critical amplifiers the key question is a single how should you think about building your own network how should how do people build networks well and so for them this is actually the thickest section of the book because most people I kind of don't they want him to go well you know if someone says oh I'm someone notices themselves do you have a network or you can go ok great you know take a step back right because it sounds like well I want you to be part of my role in x and you could be an asset to me and that's what your value is to me and it's like ok that's that's not a good relationship a good relationship is where we're allies were colleagues were were we're tackling the world together and so part of what we try to do is say look it critical to think about being a network's building networks growing networks but you could do it in a very human way is indeed a really entrepreneurial idea there's a misconception, I think uh, that entrepreneurs of these solo heroes right way glorify steve jobs and jeff bezos and these guys is individuals and forget that if they're talented it one thing it's assembling incredible teams around them andi that's why again, this is a core idea of the start of the view. It's let's look at how silicon valley entrepreneurs build networks and learn from how they do that because they truly are world class and read there's our network, their networks are complex, so many different types of relationships in the book, we zoom in on two specific kinds of relationships allies and acquaintances and you tell a story of your relation with mark pincus. You want to talk about that alliance and how that's evolved? Sure and actually it's just one of many examples the part of what's very helpful is when you, when you identify the folks that you're essentially going through um uh kind of going through your life with on our your allies impression of context, you should actually have explicit conversations about how you help each other and part of what mark and I met when he was think about doing a business um and uh I was a paypal and the business was related to its obesity introduced us and you know, we we start having and we always hey actually way look at some aspects of how the internet is changing and and you know creative and insanity is let's start getting to know each other we started getting notes and then we realize that there was a bunch of things we could do to actually help each other and then become good friends is part of that and it's it's it's such for example it's you know, we both ended up investing in friendster together because we both recognize this hole transformation of of the of the internet going to a kind of a social platform and transferring and we said oh that's right and we should figure out howto pick investments together he should uh we should identify what the key trends are and and inform our company so for example I found lengthen he founded tribe you know, he was much more focused on social I was focused on professional but we would talk about like, here the things or encountering and here's what we're doing and that actually made us learn faster and made his direct companies and much better ways a zit how it happens and so the key thing is is that these kinds of alliances uh are it's one of the places where one plus one is actually greater than two in terms of being able to add a huge amount of value to have you both navigate in terms of uh solving problems recruiting talent except right now one of the things I think is important when you think about these kinds of alliances is too that it is it's a very good thing to be somewhat explicit about them so for example with mark and I we said look he it was like we're gonna help each other because we're friends but here's a bunch of things that were going to actually specifically do in order to help each other and it isn't a you know, a trading compact it's an expression of alliance is an expression of we can make things big things happen in the world here's how we can work together and so I think that's probably the island founded zynga yes I am you join the board and invest in join the board which all only happened because we were uh alice yeah and it's such a powerful story of collaboration so powerful and I think you know if you ask a lot of really successful professionals no matter their industry or career they usually identify a handful of these close allies right these professionalize that that are emotionally rich that have a long history there collaborative they help each other over a period of many years one of the interesting things about the topic of networks, a lot of people think social networking and the internet has changed everything as it relates to relationships, and I think actually the internet has fundamentally changed the alliance. Dynamic alliance allies require aa lot of time, a lot of emotional investment, you can't have hundreds and hundreds and hundreds of allies, right? You could only have a handful people like mark in your career, and and they don't happen automatically. They don't happen naturally, necessarily actually have to work at it. So that's one kind of relationship we highlight in the book and how to go about building those alliances and that's small in number, but then there's another type of relationship that that you can actually of the sort that you could maintain dozens, hundreds, even thousands of of of connections. And this is an area where I think the internet and social networking has dramatically changed the game in terms of how many people you could know, how you stay in touch with them and so on. And these air acquaintances, these air people who with whom you are friendly but not necessarily full on friends. These are people who you meet at conferences you meet. At an event at an education event eu trade business cards with you see once a year you talked to every so often who you connect with them linked in and see an occasional status update from and maybe like your comment on that update and I think every amazing professional has a small collection of allies but also a large swath of acquaintances people who span industry span geography ease and they have both I think the thing that's that's important to remember is that it's not one or of the other is actually having both close emotional allies and professional allies matters and a large swath of acquaintances matter and the reason is that people who were close to agree to mark are very similar in many ways people who were close to ten to resemble us right to tend to work in the same industry for him to think in similar ways that's why we get along right there's no more misleading uh faux truce and I think in relationships literature than opposites attract opposites do not do not really attract we're attracted to people who think like us and affirm a lot of our intuitions s o those who are close friends but are acquaintances often look and feel very different right? They may work in different industries they may live in different places and because they are different from us they actually are sources of new and different sorts of information all right, so people who are close to us tend to be reading the same kinds of books tend to know the same kinds of people tend to be going to the same kinds of restaurants meeting the same kinds of companies. But people who are more distant from us physically, emotionally, intellectually, tend to run in different social circles, tend to be reading different things and to be exposed to different sorts of information and therefore could be really valuable sources of information when making those career decisions as we talked about or trying to learn about a new trend, or learn about what's going on in different geography. So having both close allies and a network of acquaintances is really important, and one one other thing, we mention this. In the book, I found it such a fascinating study there is a a sociologist at northwestern who won and studied broadway musicals and tried to understand what it was about the social networks of broadway productions that made a production successful. They looked at, you know, mama mia in west side story in these other groups and a bunch of failures, and tried to understand what it was about the social networks of the cast and crew that made one production successful on one not successful, and what he discovered was that the productions that failed the social network's looked one of two ways either the cast and crew uh all knew each other from prior performances of productions right? So they're all kind of close allies there there's a lot of coherence but there's no fresh blood, no new ideas, no diversity of opinion about that failed another example failure was a production which the cast and crew had never worked with each other. No one knew anybody on the first day everyone is introducing themselves for the first time lots of diversity lots of fresh ideas from people who are thinking differently but no trust right now noel alliance pond whereas when he studied the productions that were really successful he noticed it was a blend some of the cast and crew knew each other. There are some alliances. There are also a lot of acquaintances people who hadn't worked with each other and that blend of close ties and weak ties. It was really, really valuable to produce a show that had a coherent trust dynamic but also plenty of informational diversity and uh three quick additions that before we get to the question of the network side one is start ups in the valley work very similar so that that that pattern we have the data from the broadway thing but actually the very similar thing works for startups here. The second thing is is that, um it really is about this is an answer to chase this question it really is an answer to um look it's people you meet and actually like acquaintances aren't rarely the we were in a chat room together, right? Dysfunction it's it's like for example uh like it's, you have a lot of colleagues when you work in a company some of them you're pretty close to a lot of them you're fairly friendly with those ones you're fairly family can be lifetime great acquaintances as you move on in your career there people who have helped me and I on other people that I have helped where for example one guy who I worked with an apple I literally have not seen him since nineteen ninety six I actually helped him get a job about four years ago on a referral base to linked in as a function and that was because like, oh, actually another guy he's really good he's dedicated smart you know that's why and that's going be useful information a cz part of his plays and so uh it's not like oh do all your acquaintances online as much as the online helps you amplify the acquaintances that you have in the life around you and helps you connect, stay connected with them share information respect to be helpful these sorts of things and then the last part of it is to be thoughtful and systemic about how it is you're building these alliances and acquaintances and that doesn't mean manipulative this back to the very first thing that just means the ways that you look presentable when you, when you get people when you when you're thinking about how you help other people that helps build the relationships and so one of the things that I frequently talk about it's kind of this what I call the theory of small gifts which is actually giving little gifts the people around you where it's something you could do easily that's very valuable time is a very good way of building relationships. There's one one last thing we want to talk about because we've talked about the importance of investing in alliances, having alliances in the network and having acquaintances that mix but I want to take quick show of hands who here has been told that networking and thinking about networks is really, really important in their career? So I think we all have everyone's hand in the room went up everyone's virtual handle enough I'm sure on on the internet the there's no topic that's more talked about in the annals of career literature on one of the things that fascinates both reading me is the gap between between knowing and doing all right? I can't tell you how many people I've met on this topic that nod their heads vigorously on this on when hearing about you, I got it, I got to build my lines, has got a building acquaintances, but then don't actually take action to pursue that, that what they know they ought to do. In the process of working on the book, we came upon someone who had a fascinating solution to this gap he had heard and read through his whole career. I gotta build networks, got it, got to be networking, but it never quite prioritized it in the way he thought he ought to. And so they came up with an idea that he called the interesting people fund. Uh, and he employed what psychologists call pre commitment strategy in order to do the thing he knew he ought to do. So he was a student here at stanford in the bay area, studying computer science in college, and knew that eventually he wanted to start a tech company in silicon valley, and while he was a student, he built up a really excellent I work in the tech industry, had some couple of allies, he had met a variety of acquaintances, but he had also spent his whole life in the bay area and before settling down in beginning the long journey to build a new business, he wanted to get away and experience a different geography for a bit before before, before kind of settling back into the bay area. And so he took a job at microsoft and moved to seattle to work at microsoft. But as he was preparing to move, he was worried that this network that he had built up in the bay area was again atrophy. Uh, if he spent time in seattle for a few years, and so by the time he would come back to try to start the business in the valley, everyone he knew would have moved on and went no very well anymore. And so at first, he thought he just moved to seattle and try to come back regularly and reconnect with people in his network. That was really important, but then he has he has he thought about it, he realized that that that would happen, he knew himself, that he would you talk a big game about how important would be doing to maintain the network. But it went actually happened. And so he took the money that he was going to save it in state income tax by moving in washington state from california, which she's asked us not to disclose because you could reverse engineer a salary, but I'll pick a number four thousand dollars of income tax savings it was ballpark in a few thousand bucks. Took that money and put it into what he called an interesting people fund which was pre allocated on january first the rest of the calendar year to take interest in people out to coffee or lunch not just anywhere people in silicon valley. A couple weeks after moving to seattle working for microsoft, one of his old stanford professors called him unaware that he had moved to seattle and said, hey steve, I'm having some people over for dinner tomorrow night some really interesting people press a friend of mine's in from out of town you want to come over and join us and she said absolutely I'm they're booked a flight on southwest flew down showed up for the pressers house with a suitcase in tow and what's so brilliant I think about that example that he told us was if he hadn't had that fund set up what would have happened gone on southwest four hundred bucks hotel is it really worth it have to take a day off from work whatever I'll do it later I'll see him on my next trip and of course the next trip never happens so bip reality dating time, energy and specially money to invest in his network he was able to maintain these connections the ultimate move back to silicon valley recently and co founded a company with one of the woman who we met on an interesting people fund visit to the area all right, should we take some questions from the internet or from our story? I love it, but we have a lot of questions coming in. I want to check in in the studio, back right there in the back and make sure you've got a mic and let us know who you are. I'm carlo from dog pff dot com we're doing well, the business model is telling dot for dog lovers, but, um, my booth biggest thing, we're trying to solve this how to get people together in real life, right? And I think having a dog, a strong bond that that you're gonna have if somebody if you looked into, you know what other, um, factors come into creating a stronger bond with people with people like with strangers, basically, well, the, uh, uh, online dating match dot com asserts, uh uh, this is a direct quote from them. Do you laugh at the same ship? Is the best proxy for compatibility, sense of humor, a bunch of jokes. But I think in terms of interpersonal report actually think that matters hugely in terms of building a connection. I say, I think assume that was your question I one of the factors that that building our personal bridges is that writer well, basically we're trying to figure out a third dimension I like so basic given is that people have people have dogs and they don't have that in common. What we're finding is that we have people who bring in another dimension have a stronger bond. Selig started a small group called people in tech with small dogs because I saw these I went to his tech party and everybody had a white dog and all of a sudden we have parties and, you know, we go to bars and people who don't way also have the other group that you know isn't just the opposite of people in government jobs with a big black dog way yeah, I mean, basically there I'm we're trying to find, you know what other, how many dimensions you need to actually like to be able to connect with somebody more than more than just superficially have you? And I'm sure you've read words the I mean, look, the deepest way is the quick one is humor that's actually very good deepest thing is where you actually, uh, discover bonds that really matter to you so people tend to be like local communities uh, that had to be folks that you, um, either work with or live with these sorts of things and so that it's, how do you build that sense of relationship and it's the depth of we're in this together and there's a whole set of different variables to get there but that's that's essentially what you're and as you've said read uh another philosophical discussions you've had we're in this together implies an opposite implies an enemy of sorts and opposition like if I were doing a dog thing I'd rally everyone around you know who the people that are trying to block our dog parks all right who are they let's hold rallies let's have means to talk about how bad those people are right again I'm not those types of things that the in group and out overuse that yes if you have questions for me so many questions going in from the internet and there's a theme about how to get and reach people like the two of you so that you have you don't even have a connection on I wonder if you could both of the one tell us a story about somebody who was successful getting through via networking to one of you who seemingly might not have a lot of time to be in that scenario uh well for me it's fairly straightforward on it's difficult with one of the things when you uh become better known um and you know involved these companies and all the rest it always it is ninety nine point nine percent of referral from someone I know or trust right and the reason is because essentially every meeting, every single hour that's on my calendar has at least ten things competing for that slot and so I literally just can't make a decision without that kind of reference when it's a new person um I mean, sometimes you can do the like um you know, you meet someone at a dinner party or something else something that happens but but that's that's that's typical and doesn't have to be used linked in for it now somehow, as it happens is principal entrepreneur will write to me and say, look, I have this interesting business and we'll look at me go ok that's interesting and then I will refer to someone else who works at greylock to go and talk with them and if it really works out that I get involved is a function and so there are some other patterns for that but it all for me ultimate comes on a reference that comes down the reference made the other key thing is try to help the person we could we didn't cover this explicitly in our content hell in the book it's in the book in the presentation right? Sorry helping the person I was interested in the one interacting with people who are you perceive is more powerful than you or more successful, more famous or more wealthy whatever it is, people often just check out of the help task they say look, there's no way I could possibly help read, write and so I'm not even gonna like try right? Uh is that I'll just ask and that's a huge mistake you could always find a way to help someone and if someone's uh uh richer, more famous, more powerful there's still one constant error we can always add value, which is information and we're living in an information age the network age people always a hunk hungry for the latest greatest information new information on article they haven't read that's relevant to one of their interests. So always when you, when you do the outreach, even if you have something on your agenda, find a way to help of the person's much higher status it's usually give them information they haven't heard before again. There's so many misconceptions about entrepreneurship we talked about on the competition slide was that a lot of you willing entrepreneurs are are these geniuses who are born and have some amazing change the world idea while sitting in a dark room quietly when in fact they're eager to collect market intelligence and talk to folks? We talked about networks and how there's a misconception that entrepreneurs do it all by themselves when in fact they're amazing a building teams and networks and so must we all in our professional life and then finally there's a misconception I think that entrepreneurs are these crazy risk takers were betting the farm on their business ideas, and so it may seem odd to talk about risk in the context of what we can all learn from entrepreneurs, but in fact, thie greatest entrepreneurs are not wild has forest acres there pretty mistake, really rarely rarely some r, and sometimes it works out off it doesn't that argue? But so there is something systematic we can learn about how entrepreneurs think about risk and take with us. So part of the thing is has been described. It's it's a mistake either to go, look, I just it zero risk, I know it's a sure bet, any time that, for example, I'm meeting with entrepreneur, and they tell me this is a sure bet, I feel that they I haven't really thought about it carefully, because there's impact risk, and there is risk in industries and companies and freeze, and then the other one is where you say, well, ok, since you can't control risk, you just roll the dice, and, you know, the chips fall, fall, how they may, and that's that what is actually there's ways to attack risk and there's ways to take intelligent risk in terms of what you're doing, and actually was, I think, part of the work that had been doing anything in this has actually become one of the six core values for linkedin is how do you take intelligent risk in terms of how you drive initiatives from within the company and part of that is beginning to understand that not all risk is the same, right? So one of the things we talk about is there's mortal risk and not moral. More risk is something where if it goes badly, it's really, really painful, right, in some way doesn't necessarily have to be death that's, obviously quite painful. Um, but it's it's, it could be something where it's like, I don't have to move back in with my parents or those kinds of risk in mortal risk. What you do is you try you put in aa huge amount energy you take israelis, can you take put in a huge amount of energy to make sure that it goes well? Because it's a highly adverse suggestion situation, how are many other times? There are risks that are not mortal, that actually good to take that khun give you a competitive edge? One of the ones that we describe in the book that I did personally was I started apple computer in the user experience group, um, doing, you know, kind of user interface designs, and I pretty quickly realized I should be in product management and it was very difficult to figure out how to get in product management so ultimately what is I walked over to ah james isaacs who is the director of product management there and I said, look, I'd like tio I think that's what I should be doing and I'd like to do this could I actually kind of draft some product plan that our ideas for things that we could be doing for the for apple computers, the world and if you like them could we have been have a group session on them because then it'll be ways that I start meeting the other product managers that begin collaborating I learned some things and so forth and he said sure because like all right, you know, you show me things now I was taking risks not just the time but like say for example, I showed him something that was like, ok, you clearly don't have what it takes thanks anyway, right there there is there's ways that that that had, you know, risk components to it that we're really however, because of doing that and is putting in a lot of extra work to doing that and taking that risk about approaching him having him agree doing the work taking the group's time is a function of that you had a day job yeah, this is all on the side is another resolution weekend are you are you are you not doing your job? A zoo portion of doing this like, you know, did you did you get the user interface designs to the group and that's an example of taking an intelligent risk? Because what you wanted to do is you want to look at because one of the key areas back to the very first concept we're saying is competition frequently a great way to get a competitive edge is that you're willing to take a risk that someone else isn't because you realize how to take that intelligently and how to manage it in terms of what you're doing and so literally almost anything that's really interesting to do any any bold move has some risk to it, and so figure it out how to shape that risk intelligently is key that's a few things toe added amplify, and I think the volunteer for extra work at your job is the single easiest best risk than almost anyone can take if there's if there's work going on elsewhere in the company that interests you, try to get, try to sit in that median try to help out in some way uh offer your time for free, do it on the nights and do some nights and weekends it's a very easy thing that everyone can do that argue in your day job, one thing, reid said fairly quickly, that I want to come back to you think it's really important is the distinction to immortal and non mortal. And it may strike some as simplistic, right, like that's, the way you assess risk. But and I think reed understands that has done this intuitively for so long. But one of things way came upon when working on the book was a study of executives in the real world about how they think about risk. And some israeli professors surveyed a whole bunch of business exacts and asked, how do you think about risk when making decisions in business? And, uh, and I think the the assumption from a lot of the researchers was that these, you know, really smart executives would have risk models and spreadsheets and calculate expected ah, probabilities and consequences. And and really think about risk in the way that wall street thinks about risk, which is something that could be broken down into million component parts. Uh, in fact, they realize that the discover that the busy exacts think about risk in the way that silicon valley thinks about risk. Which is look, I'm moving so quickly I have such limited information there's so much uncertainty I can't fill in every variable and assess the situation by plugging stuff into a spreadsheet I have to move quick and so the thing I think about is whether if the worst case scenario happens can I survive it is the worst case survivable or not if it's survivable I'm going to be open to taking her says when I take it automatically but I'm going with my instinct I'm gonna try to fill in some blanks and then move right if I feel like the worst case scenario is my company goes under I go bankrupt my reputation's destroyed then a really wary of that risk and so that binary uh question is actually I think how many people want operating conditions of uncertainty with limited information is how people go about assessing risk our company is innovative psychiatric solutions and we're taking partial hospitalization and tell men and putting it basically a rule ok in a rule areas and really you know but our goal is to is to do way more than that that's just kind of our beginning point my problem is ok okay? My problem is that I was a therapist, not a business person and so now my company is growing faster than me and I'm keenly aware that there is a little window of opportunity to be a pioneer in this field and at the same time I'm not I don't have the knowledge I need to lead my own company to be bigger I can lead it now but not of their scale and so on the risk standpoint, I'm constantly weighing in my mind um which one did I slow down on is at a higher risk to not grow when I know that this is a it's a train that the world's on that somebody will get there before me or do I take the risk of not being the best leader I could be and figuring it out as I go or do us stop and get that under control first and then grow, which is the bigger risk? Well, it depends a lot on the, um the specific market circumstances where I don't know like what the exact competitive circumstances look like is someone you can pet competition? Yeah, well, if you don't much competition then you can actually you can take more time, right? So it's kind of a question of does does the market opportunity get foreclosed right? And if it does, then you have to take the risk to make sure it doesn't get foreclosed if you actually have some time and you say, well I can I can I can I try? I can slow down a little bit I can make sure that it's like I grow to being t the to ky acquire the skills that unnecessarily to scale up myself or could I find someone to partner with me? You know, one of things we usually do and silicon valley is the whole like wendy who hire ceo we wrote an essay and that when your r colo the's swords of things as a cz way of doing it and it comes down to kind of where which are the mortal risks right right and so and then you're gonna hurt me in the future that's what I wanted most often comes down to in this case it sounds like if you don't have any near competition and you don't have for example I go out of business because of finance and then it's like all right, well we can be a little bit more delivered in scale okay any other risk questions take one from the internet this comes from cleo who says how do you deal with risk when you are not sure or unable to know what the market reality is for example, if it is a totally new domain uh well that's more often for entrepreneurship that's more often true that not uh uh because of because very rarely is it a sure substitution sometimes it happens that way uh the key thing and this gets other parts the risk one is ok we talked about mark intelligence you know, using networks I want to do that getting as much perspectives can the other thing is you also frequently think about two other questions one is ok if this is true what other things would be true that I could go observe right so for example if you said all right do I think the people will have um public professional identities well are actually people going and putting up web sites already with public correctional identities they are comfortable doing that already okay if they weren't already a group people doing that then okay maybe this linked in concept won't work out so well as an instance where you go look at other things that aren't your exact product aren't that butter tells for is there a demand here is their participation is there a psychological mindset frequently the challenge there is there's some but is there enough? Is it a big enough scale its functions and then the last one is uh cheap shot trying to test it with cheap shots on goal right which is do something small and see if that gives you any more data all right as a function of the smallest thing is to go talk to someone smart right and that's part of using a lot of kind of very quick like okay what do you think about this? What do you think about this um but those of us and ultimately bringing that corpus together into a decision is one of the things that makes entrepreneurship hard and I think one of the it's a fascinating concept, the question of kind of how do you, what litmus test can you construct in order to figure out an answer to a question that can't be addressed head on right? Like often if you ask, like the most unreliable question the world because an entrepreneurial is dasa prospective customer like shoma quick demo our prototype and say, would you buy this right like that? That actually is not very useful or reliable feedback because customer may say yes or they say no doesn't really know it doesn't actually translate into real market feedback. So when demo in something when showing a product, you're actually looking for other signals, body language, the types of questions they ask to truly gauge the level of interest it's it's rare I think on a lot of hard questions that you get the answer by asking directly by asking head on. And so I think this is a very abroad life concept in fact, I have a friend of mine, you know is ultimate litmus test determines like someone's character is how they treat a treat a waiter at a restaurant, right? You're not going, you're not going to get necessarily insight into the question of someone's character by asking them directly hey, talk to me about your you know, after go intuitions but by observing other behavioral dynamics, you can often conclude really valuable things about that person had argued the same is true in a business contacts we've talked aa so far about uh three key strategies for navigating a career landscape that's vastly different ones are parents that we've talked about, how to build a competitive advantage by assessing your assets, aspirations, market realities. We've talked about the importance of building networks, uh, virtual team a company around you in a sense that can help you get farther faster. We talked about taking intelligent risk of all things that entrepreneurs do that we can all do in our careers. So those are some of the skills and strategies and entrepreneurs employee there's also, though, and want to finish with you by talking about the overarching mindset, the approach to life that entrepreneurs have one building, a new business that I think we can all apply to our own lives on. The approach is something that we call permanent beta and beta obviously is a term that comes from the software industry that has long meant a piece of software or a product that's not quite ready for prime time software has bugs working progress, maybe unfinished uh, but about a decade ago, seven or eight years ago, I think google forced us all to think more reflectively about what the word bait him means when they ship gmail as a fully functional email product but kept the label beta at the top of the site and I remember when gmail first came out of there all sorts blawg posted what does this mean? This is a product that worker there bogus is, you know, it's a spam thing not gonna work like I'm using a product here that's in beta what is that supposed to mean? But as people search soon found out actually females fully functional millions of e mails or processed millions of people signed up, but google wanted to keep it in data for a very extended period of time to signal I think internally and externally that the product wasn't finished uh that there is still work to do that they're always going to be bugs to work out and that if they considered it finished uh that's when a competitor will will lapse them right? For I think for entrepreneurs for google and french voters everywhere finished is its own f word, but if they think of something that's totally done and shipped to mark it on to the next thing, that product will soon be antiquated. And so since g mail was in beta other than the whole slew web two o companies that launched in beta and stayed in beta for a very long time and kind of created this idea permanent beta they're always works in progress on dh I think if you look at a lot of tremendous entrepreneurs, they really think about their companies but also their lives in this sense and the site in the book the annual shareholder letter from jeff bezos, which ends every year by saying that amazon dot com it's always day one which he thinks another expression of idea permanent data, no matter the successes we've had in the year prior it's day one again on amazon because the moment begin to dwell too much on our successes in the past is the moment of competitor will surpass us so permanent bait I think the foundational entrepreneurial approach and the key things for thinking that this was regard you is that you always need to be investing yourself the world is changing, you need to adapt right? Because part of being in probate is like there are things that I need to do in order to continue to evolve and and adapt and and and and fit what's going on with the industry what's going on in the company what's going on from an entrepreneur with my company. And so part of the reason why we kind of coined the term here in terms of permanent beta was to really get people to all to focus on always be evolving and adapting and these air all techniques, whether it's figured out how to adapt in terms of competitive edge how to be kind of evolving your connections with your network how to be taking intelligent risk in order to try to get to the next step all of these are essentially ways to think of yourself as in permanent beta and to be evolving and adapting and so that was the reason why we actually we were pretty choice a lot when we tried to coin terms on this was one of the ones that actually made it in the book and you know, one of the greatest on spurs of all time benjamin franklin, co founder of one of the greatest entrepreneurial projects of all time, wrote in his autobiography that he used to wake up in the morning, get out of bed, put on his get out, take off his pajamas panels closed and then ask himself the question will I go to bed tonight smarter than I am right now? It's a pretty intense and intense question asking every morning well, I go to bed tonight smarter than I am right now and I think he that is such a a permanent beta approach and he exemplifies all these ideas better than anyone and I think we I don't think that is actually a default approach by most people there's this professor of entrepreneurship easy davis to be quote in the book who said you know for many people when they list on their resume arlington profile twenty years of market experience what they really mean is they've had one year of marketing experience repeated twenty times right? Most people actually don't every year live in permanent beta and reinvent themselves every single year, but we argue that's what we all need to do to remain aboutthe questions morning I don't can it's got them what you guys cue up some here in the internet one in particular you mentioned and we didn't get a chance to go deep on about that sort of physical interaction part like how about those guys and gals going like him and networker that is that's or smarmy feel that we get that we don't like and can you talk a little bit about like how you transcend that but still get to connect in a way is meaningful? Well, the key thing is actually have a good social context for so that's part of the reason my referral part of reason getting getting introduced to people is always better than like example when I go to bed and I want to meet someone even though you know there's a bunch of press around me I never walk up and say hi, I'm read off and I want to talk to you you actually look for someone to introduce because that person in addition says oh, you know read is a good guy wants a chat with you but this country that's useful all the time rice and is a function the next thing is as has been amplified is is always being attentive to what you can bring them in through the relationship what you how you can help and so for example, one of the, uh, amplifications I think we did in the book was say, look because this was a particular this particular page was directed at college kids was actually in fact, when you go try to talk to someone like me or something else like, well, ok, what's going on college, carly like water of the big training, you have a unique experience here that I don't have that could actually be useful. And so when and everyone thinking about that for themselves in terms of how do they build that connection? And the last thing is to be really careful about what you're doing doesn't just sound like an ask, right? Right? Like I like this from you please me like ok, thank you never met here's an email that this long of what you could do for me? Yes, terrible approach what do you guys think? One of things that I believe in is introducing other people if if say, I wanted to get to know you and I have another, um friend that I think is equal social status and influence and interest your interests getting through that in their interest and connecting the two of you a sort of a gift like I know you I know you think you guys you know at some point when you cross past do you find that valuable you have to do it intelligently and directed lee yes, but it's another thing that fits in the theory of small gifts get it because of what I know someone to be really, really like basically the model that I used when I introduced to people is I expect the two people not expect as a expected but I'm modeling I hope that both people will thank me for the introduction yeah, at the end of the day is a thing that was cool a bunch of value out of ideally it's double optic yeah, you ask first do you were you be open to meeting reid reader you open meeting chase ok, great. Now we'll do the yeah that's a great that's a great tip on one of the things I want to do is also given this sort of linked in connection that we would go toe lincolns and others a bunch of questions coming in there so can it can you bring this one from? We have absolutely which I think it's so fun to connect these platforms here we are live work that's right all right thinking network world that's right? So if you didn't know so this is a question from eric s who is the vp of operations at colorado technical university? And his question is, I would like to know how reid could say lincoln, changing how perspective students select a college or university in the future. Specifically could prospective college students he's linked in to help shape their selection, which college to attend? And if so, how uh there's, a group working on this exact problem on dh part of the thing would be to bring essentially part of what lincoln does is it makes that the network and ability to have it mohr mohr actionable more information, more clear, more transparent. And so the kinds of things are all right, you can find out, for example, what people generally from this college graduate to go do what kind of skill sets are there? Are there alumni that I could go find and talk to about what the experience was when I was there? And all of this stuff is actually, by the way, largely doable. Now we're building which products to make it better and easier, but you can answer all these questions and there's some products under way that air specifically oriented towards the like, ok, I want to make a college decision, how do I, how do I leverage, uh, my network and and the linked in network of information and order make that decision I think you and I just want to build upon that because we have blacks who asked this earlier, but he is in high school and as a high school entrepreneur and is wondering how what advice do you have price school entrepreneurs? Because we received very little attention recognition and that would be the same people there who are looking for colleges well, there's a lot of good of the national foundation for teaching entrepreneurship there's, an organization called bill there's, a number of organizations that are focused on high school entrepreneurs, it's, possum and pool usually all the same things that apply to in trump owners later life flight a high school interpreters with the exception of you kind of have to get through high school, a zoo function and so, you know, you can look at market opportunities, you look at what you can scale to dio um, metric actually, I'm going passes question a bad heart given that yeah, so I think so I started my first company high school thing I most I think it actually is very true is that there are a lot of young people starting companies, and so the thing that I regret not doing was finding my age similar piers their time me, I get even with all the time from people who are in their teens starting companies, so you're not alone uh, find other people who are doing the thing you're doing to make them part of a network certainly find mentors and stuff that's really important to find other people who are in high school are the people who are in college trying to start a business, talk to them about how they're dealing with things that could be super super valuable. How about into those live studio audience here, let's, make sure you guys have a microphone. We get a question in the front row here, tell us who you are and what you want to ask these guys. Thanks, guys. I really appreciate it all. The advice specifically with networking. I'm neal david, I'm a lifestyle photographer based here in san francisco. Um, and kind of have goals and aspirations someday. You know of, you know, chase, you co founded something like this, you know, with photography, creative background. So, like, this guy's a limit pretty much for everyone on, but all the stories you're sharing our, you know, they seem of this wonderful outlier greatness, you know, looking back eso when folks are starting out, you know, when they're kind about that, like garageband, stage of of growing a business or starting an idea in the garage or you garage way you know, really kind of like bootstrapping, you know, completely hustling a business what are some of the top like sage advice kind of things or even a short story of, you know, some of your experience of what's really focus on, you know, nailing going through learning from others and stakes toe, you know, nice way fast track and skip steps, but, you know, move through things in a really efficient way and starting out well, a key one key differences of it it's going to aah financing an adventurer out or I'm not financing that's financing been part of the advice that given trump owners is that each time you do around financing to be thinking about the next round of financing because what you're trying to do is you're trying tio essentially make the next round of finding impossible, preferably in higher valuations that because that's an indication of progress and you frequently thinking about that is island hopping because without that you basically die are get into two serious trouble now so that's on the kind of the the investment side of it and that's one of the really key things to think about is kind of what my investment the's is what will what carville would turn over what do I then prove that make me have a broader range of investors willing to put in more money at the next you know at the next juncture and then manage the relationships and process and also nor do that if you're not doing an investment oriented business but it's like a present that kind of a lot of small businesses and it's then I think the key question usually comes down to is how do you? Where you getting the best possible data on accelerating customers? Right? Usually the biggest problems in terms of businesses is is what your customer flow look like and are you are you figuring out how to to get a broader stable of customers, how to acquire them in a and in better quality, more numbers, et cetera and in an efficient way? Because if you don't solve that problem that's part of where the mortal this comes in is a function and so to keep coming back to that no matter what, what else you're solving in the business is key in all of the hustle point in the opportunities chapter which we didn't talk about today then it's basically an idea that careers don't work as syriza jobs remarkable careers are punctuated by breakout opportunities a couple key opportunities usually dramatically accelerate someone's progress we have ah section on hustle because it is such an entrepreneurial idea we profile the, uh founders of pandora which of justice like unbelievably heroic story of, you know, going bankrupt five hundred times, getting sued a million times uh profile the founders of airbnb whose reads work closely with us an investor who have had to reinvent themselves and survived multiple near death experiences selling obama o's cereal inordinate yes it's selling cereal to finance the business and I think to me what we kind of just include the stories on the premise that um sometimes the best way to get inspired toe hustle or do more with less is just to hear the stories to interact with people who have that and kind of threw us moses absorb that instinct I know when I when I was first reading the pandora story it made me reflect gosh, if that guy can survive all of those hardships, I certainly should be able to try or if he can go through all that, the least I can do is get through this one obstacle. And so I do think kind of routine exposure and preferably relationships with people that are hustling no matter their field can be really, really inspiring for your own journey stay garage you know, that's one of the things that we like to do here creative lives way want to feel like we're always in the permanent beta were always sort of keeping everything as lean as possible with your eye on the prize of trying to make this thing the best at as much value as you can that's what we think of it there's a couple of the questions I'd say we got time for maybe one more. Um, let's. Go all the way to the back, and we need to get you a mic. Gentlemen, senator, in the gray shirt, you look like you got something real smart to ask right here. No pressure, no pressure. Yeah. My name is cody candy. I'm a product manager, referring to it. My question for you is now that you are a big shot investor and are kind of on the other side of the table. What are some of the biggest things you've realized that you wish you would have known as an entrepreneur to do things differently? Yes. One of the key things that I tell entrepreneurs to dio and I actually on lee began to realize this when I started doing an investor as what post entrepreneur was that an investment relationship is rather like a marriage and it's an odd marriage, because it's frequently you get married after, like, two power point presentations and a dinner, right? Which which, which is which is strange. And so the key thing is, is howto build? Ah, really good relationship past, and one part of that goes back to what you're specifically doing in a pitch, which is um one of things I realized little the third pitch I heard I was like, ok, this gets back to the risk thing tell me what the risks are and how you are trying to manage them because what I found was that and this is my instinct when I was an interpreter to is like, well, if I should die by sharing these risks then it looks like I don't have confidence or I'm weak or there's something else, so I'm not gonna do that well, the problem is from the investor side it's like either when I'm looking at entrepreneur and who isn't presenting the risks they either don't see there's risks in which case the blind right or foolish or something else because there are risks in these businesses or they're lying to me either of which because they have a risk for there is not telling you know they're not split up bring out the kind of things that would be like we're dealing with this is to partners looking at something to do. And so one of the things that I quickly added in my corpus of the advice that gave the entrepreneurs is when you're talking to investors one part of it is to identify what you think of the key risk are what you're doing about it because that helps build relationship and trust where they are I can work with you and, for example hopefully you're right, but you're smart about those risks you know what you're doing about them that builds confidence as well. Fantastic, great, great question so I've gotta wrap up I got one question I would take a selfish little bitter I've always been focused on content as a as an artist myself and ben as an author, probably this resonates with you you guys have shifted and doing a lot of content now at lincoln and I know a lot of the folks out there in the internet audience are they're not necessarily focused on raising venture capital there their individual makers, they're freelancers, they're people that are trying to change their so how can you talk to us a little bit off for second making content as an individual? Is that a gift? Is that one of those small gift that you can give out into the world or how does that tie into your strategy? Lincoln well, so well there's, what individual should do that's what I did is doing so what individuals do if you have an ability tio teo create content that then shapes part of the corpus your identity that could be very valuable in network world because that allows people to find you and to understand you and go oh, this is maybe somebody that I want to do business with somebody I want to hire somebody I want to follow in terms of what they're doing. And so part of what we've been doing it linked in has been realizing that toe have business focus content with people who aren't journalists but who are actually practitioner. Those who who have solve these problems, who are solving these problems, to share that information and insight both in how they saw the problems and also the industry, so that we, as business people, can actually solve those problems faster and that's way. Have this program called lincoln influencers with a bunch of other things going on in order to do that? And part of that is because in this kind of accelerating competitive world, the new world of work, you have it's really, really critical to find a way to solve the problems faster and the right information. The right people help you do that great. Anything out of them. And I think I said it all right, awesome. Well, please join me in giving a huge round of applause.