How to Be a Great Founder with Reid Hoffman (How to Start a Startup 2014: Lecture 13)

TL;DR

Reid Hoffman argues the classic image of the founder as a superhuman polymath is a myth; great founders instead have a few superpowers, navigate a series of apparent paradoxes (e.g., persistence vs. flexibility, belief vs. fear, vision vs. data), and make decisions guided by an explicit investment thesis.

Key insights

• It is usually better to have two or three co-founders rather than a solo founder, because they can compensate for each other’s weaknesses and handle diverse problems; messy co-founder divorces are fre
• Location choice is a test of founder mindset: great founders go to where the strongest networks are for their specific problem, which may not be Silicon Valley (e.g., Groupon needed Chicago’s sales-fo
• Being contrarian is easy; being contrarian and right is hard. Founders must be able to articulate what they know that smart, expert people disagreeing with them do not know.