Gokul Rajaram on Starting a Company in the Age of AI

I see a mistake founders make again and again. I started a company because I

again. I started a company because I wanted to start a company and I I wish that someone had sat us down and said guys first figure out what you want to tackle it because startups are not a straight line up there all kinds of

everyone had near that moments and painful unless it's something you're really passionate about you're going to abandon it quit it >> you've had the chance to be part of seven different frankly generational

companies Meta Google Block Door Dash Coinbase when you're trying to construct a good team to take on a mission in startup land that is in the AI sphere are there other things that you you need

to be considering when putting together like a team for AI kind of startups that maybe perhaps wasn't the case I don't know 5 years ago >> the technology itself can lead to

interesting product breakthroughs if you live and breathe the because the technologies underlying it the LLMs are changing so rapidly and I think if you just get somebody who's a good engineer but doesn't live and breathe this

doesn't understand all the breakthroughs are going on as part of the founding team I think it is hard to build what is called an A&M today.

>> Welcome everyone to another edition of the Minus One podcast uh where we discuss kind of the lives and the stories of some of the most interesting and accomplished people in the world. Um

I'm honored today to kind of like have Gokul Rajaram on the podcast. Uh Gokul

has had a legendary career kind of in Silicon Valley. Uh I'd say you'd be

Silicon Valley. Uh I'd say you'd be hardressed uh to find a product that you have not used or been touched by as a result of kind of like the work that he's done. Um Gokul, welcome to the

he's done. Um Gokul, welcome to the podcast. Welcome to Miners One. We're

podcast. Welcome to Miners One. We're

excited to have you here.

>> Adita, my friend, great to see you again and excited to be here. Thanks for

having me.

>> Gokul, you know I was just reading, you know, your website right before this, right? And it was one of the interesting

right? And it was one of the interesting amazing lines you kind of start off with is that you've had the chance to be part of seven different frankly generational companies right Meta Google Block Door

Dash and so on Coinbase. So in some ways probably more so than most of us, you have probably been in that minus one phase more so than I would say most people because I like to think that in

between each of these kind of projects, these companies, you must have had a time when you're trying to figure out is this actually something that is worth spending my time on, right? Like is this

a project or a company or a founder that is worth kind of like spending time on?

So how do you in some ways like what is your mental model? How do you kind of figure out what are the important things for you to focus on particularly you know now that in some ways you probably have a plethora of like projects that

you could kind of pick from? So what is like walk us through your mental model for picking interesting things to work on.

>> I think it's a great great point and I think a lot of folks um today especially are between things. I think always there have been people obviously between things but I feel even more so as this

new wave of AI over the last two years has gotten many ambitious people thinking what next and uh essentially if you think about it I think of two things

as as the most important one does the mission is the mission big enough and meaningful enough for it to matter so and is it aligned with my own personal things that I care about

>> and now we can go deeper into each of And the second is if if it is a company I'm joining or if it's you know some it's a company I'm joining or it's an idea who is it I'm doing it with is it is the team or the person I'm going to

be working with or for are they inspirational are they complimentary is it someone I would basically enjoy spending time with and is it the right person that together we can accomplish

great things and and accomplish the mission so it's mission and people I think mission is number one in some ways because I feel once you are aligned on the mission and I think I made the

biggest mistake in some ways. Uh which

proved to be good in retrospect because I joined Meta uh Facebook back then when I started my company Chiliabs because I think uh and this I see a mistake this founders make again and again. I started

a company because I wanted to start a company. I was at Google. I saw a lot of

company. I was at Google. I saw a lot of people leaving to start companies and I said you know it's something I want to do and my brother had just gotten his green card and he was a very good engineer and I was like you know what we've never worked together. let's work

together. I can be the product guy. I

can be the engineer. Let's start a company. So, we started a company for

company. So, we started a company for the sake of starting a company. And what

is crazy is that Silicon Valley enabled it. We were able to get money from

it. We were able to get money from Facebook's investors. Even though we're

Facebook's investors. Even though we're not Facebook, we got Excel, Greylock, Mark Anderson, and Reed Hoffman, all these guys put money into us without even knowing what the hell our idea was, what problem we were solving, what we were targeting. And it was really bad in

were targeting. And it was really bad in some ways because they were just enabling us. And I I wish that someone

enabling us. And I I wish that someone had sat us down and said, "Guys, first figure out what you want to tackle." And

I think it it it basically without having a notch problem um that you go after uh you basically we we kind of were like the you know tree in the wind when the wind blew this way we go this

way and then this way and so we almost we read something and say let's go pursue this and then we pursue this and that and it was it was painful and we ultimately glombmed on to something but I wouldn't say it was our passion it was

more almost necessity we had to do it and that's not a way to build a great company. So, I always I've had so many

company. So, I always I've had so many people work for me with me who are like, "Hey, I'm my buddy and I are going to start a company together."

Is that what you're going to tell me?

It's your buddy and you're going to start a company. Is that what you want to start a company because it's your buddy?

>> Don't do this. And I'm telling you again and again, I see this people make this mistake. So,

mistake. So, >> what is your problem which is meaningful enough and meaty enough that you want to tackle that for the next 10 years? Yeah.

>> It can be a northstar for you to pursue that you're willing because as you know, startups are not a straight line up.

There's all kinds of things.

>> Everyone had near-death moments and painful.

>> Unless it's something you're really passionate about, you're going to abandon it. Quit it.

abandon it. Quit it.

>> Yeah.

>> I think the only lucky thing was my brother and I were brothers. So, we

never quit.

>> Yes. Exactly.

>> Quit that. So, we could have just one of us probably would have walked away at some point. It was so painful also in

some point. It was so painful also in the middle of the global financial crisis in 2008 2010.

>> So, I think it's mission and people.

Mission and people.

>> That's actually a great crisp articulation and I'll get into a bunch of that. But first, Gokul, I want to

of that. But first, Gokul, I want to give you credit. I think Chai Labs is actually a great name. Like it is very evocative like at least perhaps because

I'm Indian. I just like the idea of kind

I'm Indian. I just like the idea of kind of like sitting thinking having a chai kind of like figuring out what to work on. So like it's just actually a great

on. So like it's just actually a great name. So first of all good credit for

name. So first of all good credit for names. You know

names. You know >> there's at least one thing we built which is >> it's a great name. Um but you know I I think Google obviously I I think you

know at SPC we strongly subscribe to kind of this idea that uh startups are a I mean we'll get back to this we think startups are a marathon you know it's a marathon that you're running at a sprint

often which is kind of like exactly so it's kind of this weird combination where you are you have to sprint for a very long time but it is definitely a marathon right um and so our take is

that man like if you're going to be running for a very long time it's okay to take 6 n months to figure out what is a race worth running right like you know put another way you know if if you're so

focused on scaling the mountain what happens if after 3 years you figure out it's a wrong mountain or it's a small mountain it turns out to be a hill you know and great mountaineers often spend more time planning the expedition than

they do actually kind of like climbing the damn thing so you're speaking you're definitely I think very resonant with our worldview you know we've both been in Silicon Valley for a long time you know I've been in Silicon Valley for 20

years and you've kind of been around for almost 25 30 years as well and one of the weird things to me is that Kok like compared to even a decade ago there is an order of magnitude more venture

capital in the system today if not more right uh and yet if you ask me are there like 10x more amazing strong big ideas being tackled I'm like I'm not sure right like it's weird where like the

rate of like ambition is not increasing at the same rate of like venture capital and I think a lot of it is because there is this big amount of impatience in

starting a company where it's very hard to sit in the muck sit in kind of the discomfort of like you know I don't know I'm not 100% sure I don't have a great kind of insight yet I don't have a

mission that I'm passionate about yet right so I guess you know from your perspective here's maybe the precise question I actually am curious to get your answer do you think it is possible

to almost first principles your way into a great mission or Is that some amount of like serendipity, intuition, kind of creative kind of like the creative stroke that

kind of comes to you? Can you almost will your way into a good mission? I'm

curious.

>> You sometimes can, but ultimately it comes from a personal connection to it.

I think uh >> I feel if you look at and many times if you look at these missions, right, they evolve organically, but it has to be something you're passionate about. And I

think if you if you start a company just to start a company, I think that's a very mercenary way. And I feel that's not if you look at Zuck, right? Great

example. He didn't start a company. He

first wanted to just solve a problem for himself and that became a company. Larry

and Sergey, they just wanted to build a search engine and then it became a company. So that's a crazy thing. Most

company. So that's a crazy thing. Most

of the companies have been involved with Door Dash. The guys just did a research

Door Dash. The guys just did a research project or a project at school at Stanford. The same at Jack and Jim. Jim

Stanford. The same at Jack and Jim. Jim

was at Square. Jim was rejected for credit card processing and they said this is and we're going to solve this problem and it became a company. So solving I think trying to

company. So solving I think trying to solve problems and then it morphing into a company is a great way because then versus like saying well I've read in tech crunch that this market is this big and I'm going to solve it and that's

there's no personal connection no authenticity in the story. I feel there has to be an authentic thing because if you don't truly feel it you're going to always abandon ship when things get tough and things get painful.

>> Yeah it's interesting. You know, often times when people are in the idea maze, what I keep on coming back to telling them is that like you kind of go back and figure out something that you're actually passionate about working on

solving. What problems have you faced?

solving. What problems have you faced?

And this is why like you know it's it's tricky because you often have to go searching back like you know through either your work history or through your personal history like what is act and I think that the thing that perhaps should

give people hope I suspect everybody has one of those ideas in them you know like and you can get stuck. It's not easy to draw it out but I think if you are kind of smart and creative you have it in

you. Some people it might be more buried

you. Some people it might be more buried than other people. Some people are more natural I think at being generative and being creative.

>> Uh but I do think that those that kind of well of creativity exists in a lot of people you know uh >> one of the best ways I feel to force people to do this is if anyone comes to

me with a B2B idea where at square one of the biggest challenges we had unlike Door Dash, Facebook and Google was those are consumer companies. So as consumers you could live the problem.

>> You could live the problem.

>> You're not a merchant. So we would force people to go and spend one week working the counter of a merchant. And it was pretty cool. And so I think increasingly

pretty cool. And so I think increasingly I tell uh okay you want to solve a the problem for an HWAC company. I want you to go and work for two weeks at a HWAC company and be the IT consultant there.

If you can't, how the hell are you going to sell anything? Go and find a job and be the IT consultant. Go native. go

undercover and basically then truly experience the pain and then come back to me and tell me what the pain points are. Don't just say because you read

are. Don't just say because you read this, you interviewed. I want you to spend time in the shop on their side and then experience the problem.

>> Let me ask you a spicy question. I'm

actually very curious to get your take on this. Perhaps it's because I'm bad at

on this. Perhaps it's because I'm bad at doing this. I have never believed that

doing this. I have never believed that talking to users is that interesting. I

would much rather tell like get people to react to ideas and solutions because I'm just if you ask most pe because it's not the user's job to tell me like what great ideas are that's my job like as a

builder right so exactly >> like I'm curious does that resonate with you like when people say to do user research I'm always like to what end you know >> yeah I I think there is a subtle thing

here my take is you interview people and there's a way of interviewing them to uncover problems you never interview them to uncover solutions As you know if you ask people for solution they will ask you they will

keep asking faster horses and so on horse. So and the way to interview them

horse. So and the way to interview them to uncor problems is to ask them to tell stories. So in other words for example

stories. So in other words for example if I were to say you know why did you choose Netflix yesterday night to watch a movie. You might be hardressed to kind

a movie. You might be hardressed to kind of tell me exactly why or why do you choose Netflix you know but if I say just tell me the last time you choose a movie. Tell me about the process you

movie. Tell me about the process you went through. Tell me the story. Well,

went through. Tell me the story. Well,

you know, we were sitting around, the kids wanted to watch something. I opened

the TV. There's nothing on Xfinity or YouTube TV, but I I like, you know, so you basically go through the whole journey and then you're like, okay, so these are the this is the journey. So

the journey is what then it it talks about the decision point. It talks about the why. And so I I like hearing the

the why. And so I I like hearing the stories of what caused them to take aition and the story is a way to interview. So I used tried to use

interview. So I used tried to use storytelling. Everyone likes to tell

storytelling. Everyone likes to tell stories of what they did something. the

richer the better and the stories have a lot of nuggets that help you uncover what pain they were trying to solve and what you can do to make >> actually really good. I mean, I actually think that even for my own personal kind of cannon of knowledge, I'm actually

going to stop calling it user research and I'm just like call it user storytelling. Like I just want to hear

storytelling. Like I just want to hear stories about users lives, right? And

about users lives.

>> Yeah. And like make it like mundane. So

the mundane can be fascinating if you're just like actually to your point dude like you had three hours like as a young parent who has three hours to watch something. How did you like what did you

something. How did you like what did you do? Tell me everything.

do? Tell me everything.

>> Exactly. You know

>> exactly tell me the context. What were

you doing? Where were you sitting around? How did you guys even decide to

around? How did you guys even decide to watch it watch a movie versus doing something else. Exactly. So let's go to

something else. Exactly. So let's go to that you know that discussion and so you just unear a lot of so you just get them to describe and then obviously thankfully now with pendants limitless and so on you can record a lot so you

don't have to like earlier I would be sitting and taking notes seriously now you can just record in granola or something like that and and then you can ex you know extract stuff from it.

>> That's amazing. But you're right, solutions have to come from your own intuition, but the problems can be surfaced through these rich stories hopefully.

>> Yeah. It's one of the weird dichotoies of like starting a company where I tell people to your point the harder you are trying to start a company, the least probably you're going to be straight

line successful. So in some ways you

line successful. So in some ways you almost have to be a little bit light about it. You can't force it. you kind

about it. You can't force it. you kind

of have to you kind of have to let go to the process of serendipity you know like this is why I think at SBC when people come in and you know if they've had a really stressful kind of like job at a

startup or like they were doing some you know something crazy and then people ask me like oh this really fun person you this really talented person joined SPC what are they working on I'm like they're going to take two months to kind

of just like unwind and it's >> I think it's a great philosophy man because I mean I I admire some of these accelerators no but but I do think they quickly get you to pivot and they you have a certain amount of eight weeks to

come up with an idea of pivoting and that's hard that's hard >> and like my take is that like in the beginning and I think the part that's tricky is that we don't know how to appreciate the fact that when your brain

is doing being truly creative it is making a lot of like interesting connectivity but your brain also just takes a little bit of time because the day you you know when I left Facebook for the next two weeks I was still

thinking about Facebook stuff or Dropbox stuff when I left Dropbox Right. So, um

it's interesting. So, you almost have to let go and be a little bit rudderless, you have to be less like straight line directed, which is hard for us in Silicon Valley because we want to be in control, you know, like this is the key.

>> That's why so many good ideas for people come in the shower or when they're out in nature or so on because you're not connected with something. Your mind is free and it's free to make these connections that would normally not happen because you're in a structured environment.

>> Yeah. It's interesting, you know, to your point, when you go talk to a lot of these founders, whether it be Larry and Sergey, whether it be Mark, whether it be um obviously uh Jack at kind of

Square or Tony at Door Dash, you can boil I mean there's obviously a lot of mythology that gets created over time, but there is often a moment where you can boil it down to like some moment of

frustration and serendipity and then intense activity following that moment of like creation, right? And then after that like there's a lot more company building and I find that fascinating

because um at its root that is what creation is where there's that spark of like kind of in some ways creativity and innovation.

>> I think one of the most interesting conversation I've ever had was Dylan Field at Figma. Oh god.

>> I met Dylan in 2012. In fact I was at Facebook. He came to have lunch with me

Facebook. He came to have lunch with me at Facebook and the guy I could just see he had an obsession at design. He had

dropped out of of Dartmouth if I remember or brown or somewhere and he was living at home >> either a brown he was brown yeah >> he was a brown and he he basically and I had used Photoshop at my startup and it

was a it was really crappy I couldn't even download it properly use it on my IBM laptop back then and Dylan said I have Photoshop I have a better thing than Photoshop running on my browser I'm like no way I don't believe this and

then he showed showed it to me and it was super fast and it was it actually worked I played around with it and I could you could just see the subtle touches he around design. He had no there was no sharing capability,

nothing. It was simply a single user

nothing. It was simply a single user mode, but it was Photoshop in the browser. And you could see it was better

browser. And you could see it was better than Photoshop in many ways, not not fully baked in other ways. And that

passion for of design passion for him coupled with the fact that the guy I think he had one other person on it was able to build this >> Evan just Yeah. Evan Exactly. and and

just that you know that just instantly that was one of the meetings where >> you know immediately you know immediately like this person you know it's I mean one second on Photoshop honestly I bet this is Photoshop is one

of those pieces of software that 98% of people who have heard of Photoshop have never figured out how to use it because like the complexity of the layers all of the things you're just like most and I'm

a software engineer and I have never really used use Photoshop right it's too complex but Figma it's in the browser nothing to install all within 30 seconds you'll figure it out right and that's incredible

>> think of it it came from his passion over years >> or his passion for design led him to this it's almost a natural thing you can extrapolate young Dylan >> to yes that's the kind of company he would start because of >> you know so

>> and Dylan is I mean he is truly passionate about design as a craft like he just believes deeply in it um and you know to your one more thing that you said which is that the you know kind of

the the and this is it's hard to kind give people this advice about something, but the best founders have insane fractal knowledge and obsession about what they're working on. It's not

because they just want that's the right way to do a company. It's because

they're genuinely deeply curious.

>> You're absolutely right. In fact, the Collison, I believe, went and got a book on payments from the 1950s. Yeah.

>> And looked at complete read the entire history of the payment industry, why it worked, interviewed every person they could find. Yeah. And this is the thing

could find. Yeah. And this is the thing your point about the idea m I ask all kinds of random questions to understand why did you approach this because they've taken most founders have a specific approach solving the problem I

ask them why couldn't you take this other approach random approach and I want to understand how deeply steeped are they in the history of this problem >> why haven't they they're so excited about this problem why haven't they

>> why haven't they gone super deep >> exactly super deep why is this approach not so they have a very well-reasoned answer for how they navigate the IDMAS to get to this way this wedge tackled the problem first was this other wedge.

And you're right, it shows in the passion. It shows in the understanding

passion. It shows in the understanding the history of the industry of the problem of the pioneers. This problem, I promise you, someone would have tackled it in some way, shape, or form before.

>> Yeah.

>> None of these companies, search was not the first one. Facebook was not the first one. Square was not the first not

first one. Square was not the first not the first engine. They all been tackled.

Why is this better? What is the problem with future? If you can't tell that,

with future? If you can't tell that, hang on. You don't know what the history

hang on. You don't know what the history of what you're doing is >> you know that also is a interesting Yeah. And it's so and perhaps the maybe

Yeah. And it's so and perhaps the maybe the way to frame this into advice for founders is that if you are not that obsessive about something, you just might not care enough about this might

not be your mission. Like if you don't >> this might not be your mission. If

you're not that passionate like listen, you're either the kind of person who's really into HVAC or you're not. Okay?

Like if you're into HVAC, you'll probably figure out why heating and cooling is such a big way for expanding frankly like geographic colonization of the world and living in different places. It's been a big hu boost to

places. It's been a big hu boost to human productivity. Like it's actually

human productivity. Like it's actually like a really deployed piece of technology and it's really important to do it cost efficiently. There's a ton of money that goes into it. But if you're not a nerd about it, then maybe you just

don't care. And that's okay. Go find

don't care. And that's okay. Go find

something that you actually want to be >> obsessed with living and breathing within the Hack community. If you really are building a company, I mean the service titan guys came from a family I believe exactly >> attract people right I mean their families did they lived and breathed it

for many years before they were doing >> and they're truly if you talk to Ara and you I mean I've kind of got the chance to kind of like I would say help them with a bunch of CTO related stuff over

the years I mean whenever he asks me a question about how to build the engineering organization it is he's very honest like listen I am building HWAC related kind of like you know end toend

software I'm And so I don't want a general purpose great CTO. I want a CTO who's great for this. I'm like that's well framed. Very few like not every CTO

well framed. Very few like not every CTO is going to love this, right? But when

they do they should be super obsessive about it. So perhaps to switch gears a

about it. So perhaps to switch gears a second here.

>> Do you think that there's enough of you've obviously you know you're familiar with the ecosystem in India as well, right? Um and so one of the things

well, right? Um and so one of the things we started SPC in Bangalore uh about 12 months ago and it's been awesome.

>> I was in Bangalore recently and it's definitely a buzz around it. Okay.

>> I appreciate you saying that. Um and I have just been blown away by the quality of founders just like the raw talent in India. And I think the big one of the

India. And I think the big one of the questions that I'm trying to figure out is like how do we more fully embrace this idea of illeible kind of like early

like somewhat weird ideas go deep right?

there might be non like and don't just focus on the operationally heavy businesses also go for places where there's true technology and product alpha right so I guess perhaps other pieces of advice you would give to the

ecosystem in India in particular on how to create these seinal companies uh that I think India definitely has raw talent for but today I think sometimes we you know everybody's talking about like

where the AI companies out of India and so on right so I'm curious what advice would you give to the ecosystem in India >> I think the number One thing is being patient. I think Indian society in

patient. I think Indian society in general including parents which are a big part of the ecosystem. There is a lot of focus on role models. So I think the more every role model flipkart role

model the bunels you know basically led to a million e-commerce startups and that became legitimized. Similarly you

know Uber or Ola or oh sorry Ola Oo etc. they created another ecosystem. So I

think financial services grow and and zeroda they create another set of so I think if you look at the top Indian companies they're either financial services or e-commerce it's because the pioneering companies that inspired them

so I think we need one or two winners in deep tech out of India which are which are basically so I think we need patience there are some good ones there are some space tech ones there are some other ones we need a couple of them to

win and the good news is economic times and other newspapers and and media broadly not just economic times but the internet does a good job of making these heroes broadly accessible and there's enough people they just need role models

I think in general Indian youth it's because I think various societal pressures but you need role models to show it's possible >> and then there is going to be >> that's a good way of articulating it

>> even Arvin from perplexity he's a role model you could argue that obviously he's done it in Silicon Valley but having go to India and spend more time in India people do think of him as a role model I've heard many times people mentioned so many folks like you I mean

you know the more you go and more we spend time in India Arvin you there's more and more Indian founders of global companies founders of global companies out of the US they were not I mean there were not as many earlier I think there

were more B2B kind of companies but now they are founders of consumerish companies consumer companies that are used globally that's a rarity and I think the more we can say that global companies can be founded by people who

have similar backgrounds to you you know you you have no and talent is there talent >> yeah talent is there this is a good way of articulating it because you're right because the the positive way of stating this would actually I mean sorry the one

way interpretation is when you can point the talent towards like a good kind of kind of in some ways um a good persona to kind of get inspired by then you know you can actually we can make that happen

we can enable that right and you're right like in particular some of the deeper tech stuff in our portfolio in India around drones and kind of space and kind of like flight essentially uh they're very interesting companies and

we have one in particular that I'm very excited about his started by a guy called Shri Pura And so I think that the I mean he's kind of building essentially like high alitude essentially drones that can

carry like 200 kg like payloads or something right and this is if done well this could actually be something that is obviously very relevant in India but globally and this is just a young team you know kind of out out of IIT I think

Madras like 22 year olds who can kind of pull this off. So like that's kind of the role model, right? Which is this true technology, this true daring, this true ambition. Um very

true ambition. Um very >> a good mentor. Connect him. I think

connect them with these promising people. Connect them with good mentors.

people. Connect them with good mentors.

Yes.

>> Who who they can look up to, aspire to.

Every every one of these people should get a mentor that they can be coached by. I always say one of the things that

by. I always say one of the things that every founder I mean Tony was excellent at. I don't know about Zuck. I'm sure

at. I don't know about Zuck. I'm sure

Zuck Zuck Peter was his mentor, right? I

mean Tony.

>> Yeah.

>> You know always like who's the mentor? I

mean he had so many offers to join boards but he took the meta offer I think because he saw that he can learn a lot of having Zuck build a master >> I mean like Mark has always Zuck has always built an incredible board right

like between like you know Mark and recent has been on the board for gosh like 18 years or something >> that's right Mark and yeah Reed Hastings back in the

day and even today like you know his board is a little bit I would say um uh you know his board is definitely somewhat unique in in terms of like the set, but he's clearly bringing people onto the board that he wants to learn

from whe like Tony from Door Dash, right? Or Patrick now, right? And I, you

right? Or Patrick now, right? And I, you know, I've seen Zuck over the years when Zuck gets into learning mode, as you know, he kind of gets locked in. He gets

locked in.

>> And I, you know, I always tell people that the I mean, I've Mark is obviously a dear friend. I've known him for a long time, but what's incredible about him is that he learns faster than most people,

you know? So it's not just that his

you know? So it's not just that his clock speed is like already very high is that his desire to kind of get better is also very high and he he just it's like a sponge. He will just kind of like

a sponge. He will just kind of like start peppering you with questions examining his own beliefs. Uh it's

remarkable. Um

coming back of the learning many many successful entrepreneurs I think this might be one thing in India you're judged on how well you pass or do well in exams but the reality is you need to fail and and learning involves having a

beginner's mindset acknowledging that you don't know anything and humility and that's the thing I think you you he's perfectly fine saying I don't know something and ads for example when I joined he didn't know much about ads but

my god he was just his by the end some of the best ideas in the ads team came from Zuck because he understood what ads was all about.

>> You know, it's funny you say this because I always tell people life is so much simpler when you have a beginner's mind. You don't have to be smart about

mind. You don't have to be smart about most things. You can kind of be like,

most things. You can kind of be like, listen, I'm here to learn. It is so exhausting when you have to pretend to be an expert at everything, you know?

And I think that like this is one of the parts that I love about well Silicon Valley, but in general about our culture, which is that it's okay to kind of admit you don't know something. Like

it's it's actually much easier to be like this is what I know. this is the extent of what I know and pre I'm here to learn you know and I think we kind of take >> you are very successful so I think I've seen that the more successful you are

the more comfortable you are interesting you don't you don't really owe anything to anyone you're not in an organization structure that's true if you're coming up and you're striving as a product leader you know that that's a challenge

I think within an organization >> culture well said because I judge the people who work with me sometimes you're right like because I'm like how do you not know this simple thing you know you're right no you're right I I fair

call out. Fair call out because there is

call out. Fair call out because there is a method like because Yeah. No, you're

totally right and I appreciate kind of the more successful you get, the easier it is to not give a And I think when you're when you're

>> Exactly. NGF. Exactly.

>> Exactly. NGF. Exactly.

>> Um interesting. Uh let me switch gears to AI. Okay. because I think we're

to AI. Okay. because I think we're living in super interesting weird times where not just the nature of what we build but also how we build it all seems

to be shifting. So let me come back to your mission and people kind of um framing.

Let's talk about the people part of it for a second. Maybe the team part when you're trying to construct a good team to take on a mission in startup land that is in the AI sphere. There's a lot of things that you want to make sure you

know there's values alignment obviously both sets of people are aligned on how hard they want to work like the modality of working and I think hope but are there other things that you need to be

considering when putting together like a team for AI kind of startups that maybe perhaps wasn't the case I don't know 5 years ago. I think one of the most

years ago. I think one of the most interesting things in AI I feel the technology itself can lead to interesting product breakthroughs if you live and breathe the because the

technologies underlying it the LLMs are changing so rapidly and coming up with like computer use was not a thing till one year ago and it's become a huge part of many things similarly if you look at

multimmodal stuff vision voice um and and and and some of the other things I think image processing and so on they've become much more advanced document processing etc. So I think you need truly someone who lives and breathes it

and I think if you just get somebody who's a good engineer but doesn't live and breathe this doesn't understand all the breakthroughs are going on as part of the founding team I think it is hard to build what is called an AI company.

uh in general if I look at the founder persona I am seeing you you have a much broader vantage but I'm seeing the lack of one specific type of founder archetype I used to see I I'm

seeing a lot of very young kids were right out of college or in college it's crazy a bunch of my my kids are in college and some of their classmates I see them pitching me I'm like holy cow 20 something they're fearless I mean

they're completely they've grown up with AI another another one is people from research labs and they've been in uh deep mind or or fair or something that's The second person are third person is repeat entrepreneurs. They've had a

repeat entrepreneurs. They've had a moderate success. What I'm seeing less

moderate success. What I'm seeing less of >> is people with >> exactly what you're going to say >> at a company. I think they are less they're more nervous. Why? Because they

came up they came of age in a company which is not AI. They've they have they've kind of gotten to a mid mid-level manager role and now they're like okay. So I am not seeing those

like okay. So I am not seeing those people raise their hands and start companies. So that that persona would be

companies. So that that persona would be a very active entrepreneurial persona 3 five years ago. Now I'm seeing much less of those kind of people.

>> At least in our SPC part of the world, we're definitely seeing we're seeing all of this play out. We're definitely

seeing more younger folks. Basically,

people who don't have any to unlearn, you know, like there's no baggage. There's no baggage to let go

baggage. There's no baggage to let go of. They're like a they're smart and

of. They're like a they're smart and they're kind of like first principles.

They'll just learn the new thing.

>> Um and number two, it's the repeat entrepreneurs. the basically the people

entrepreneurs. the basically the people who have already in some ways you know that they have grit, resilience and kind of like drive and they're like oh this is a beautiful time of platform change to go apply something but we are seeing

less you're right of like kind of the >> whatever like you know the seven eight years at like a high-flying company or like a unicorn who because for them it

is unclear if what they're great at actually is that interesting or relevant you know like frankly if you have spent the last you know 10 at a place like you know places that we love Facebook,

Google, Meta and Google I often wonder I'm like man were you doing things the old way because I suspect you're doing things the old way and in fact like your old way is going to get out competed by somebody who's

not going to have that baggage. Um,

>> and the same I mean I think one of the hardest I feel in some ways sad that I'm not in the job market or not working in some ways that because it's such an incredible thing to actually working but I also feel man the skills I mean the

head of product role these are some later stage companies is one of the hardest roles to hire for today because >> everyone wants people who are fluent in AI. How the hell are you going to get

AI. How the hell are you going to get ahead of product who's fluent in AI?

Most people who are fluent in AI have one or two years of experience.

>> Exactly.

>> They're not necessary head of product.

So it's I have seen a lot in fact I tweeted about this a lot of people have gone back to becoming IC's and that is what I really want to see

>> go back to being IC go back to being an IC learn the basics work at that kind of engineering product whatever it is it shows humility it shows a beginner's mindset it shows >> because the people management stuff you

you'll get back if you're a good people manager it's not going to go away it's like riding a bike but understanding this new thing you can't lead a team unless you know the technology unless you know how the damn thing works

>> and so go and go and build some real hands-on skills and show that you can do the work. I completely agree. And

the work. I completely agree. And

you know, it's interesting because um I think coming back to you, you said this in passing a little bit. The only real way to become an AI expert today is to just use these damn things all the time.

>> Like like instead of reaching for your default like workflow, make use AI to do it. Build a small tool. That is the only

it. Build a small tool. That is the only way that you can figure out what the limits of this technology is. And it can be frustrating because it will feel like you have to go slow to go fast. But all

the truly AI native people are just using this all the time, right? Um, and

I think that is literally the only way to learn because nobody has built up tribal knowledge that you can learn from yet.

>> Yeah, Julie Xiao actually our our dear friend and colleague from Facebook.

>> She basically had a very good podcast a few days ago where I think she said something that really made me think. I

had been thinking about it but she articulated well. She said that I think

articulated well. She said that I think she said the captain planet model is breaking where she said there are all these planets product engineing design which used to be traditional pods where you have a product person engineering design analytics now

>> you just have two or three people who are all builders and you can't classify them uh you can't say is it a product person engineering so increasingly hearing this need for polymaths u design hey you know what I also want you to be

able to do some front end engineering I want you to be able to understand product and customers product I want to be able to understand engineering and so on maybe you're better at one or two and but you need to know you have to have a T- shape more and more and more maybe

you spike on one thing and Julie was taking to the extreme saying everyone has to know everything I think that's still there's still some esoteric things like building an iOS app if you want to do that final thing you need I had a I

worked somebody who was an IC8 or IC iOS engineer and that's the only thing he did he didn't know anything about backend but he was damn good at that and we needed someone like that but maybe you need one of those for a company one or two of those amazing people but

everyone else is a polymath who's able to do a bunch of things. You need one designer specialist who can make sure your design rules and are there.

>> Now you're making me want to go, you know, I I always tell people I think I was a pretty good engineer.

>> You're a damn good product guy and a damn good designer.

>> I was more like I kind of like to do it a bunch of different things. So perhaps,

you know, I should go back and get more leverage. Um, but to your point, I think

leverage. Um, but to your point, I think it is really I think that's actually really well said by Julie and articulated by you as well, which is like I think today if you're not actually feeling that you can cross over

like the prior boundaries you set for yourself >> like you you are then not using AI correctly, right? Like

correctly, right? Like >> so actually I would say then I let go back to our founding team. The founding

team just like we we expect the the hustler and the hacker prototype. The

hustler we expect to do sales, marketing, everything. The hacker

marketing, everything. The hacker actually should many different things.

>> Correct.

>> It's not a pure engineering. It could be someone who's engineering, product design. We expect them to do many many

design. We expect them to do many many many things.

>> Yeah. And honestly like today if I were running a in an interview for like kind of like a founding engineer or maybe even a founding CTO if you wanted to, right? If if you give them a problem and

right? If if you give them a problem and they don't return you a pretty polished end to end up and down solution within two hours like then what like there that means they're not using AI correctly.

like because like the AI can like it should allow you to do that right um and if they cannot speak intelligently about the nuances of GPT5 for coding versus

like you know Opus 42 and where it excels where it doesn't why they might like you know replet versus winer versus kind of like um cursor like that means they're not actually thinking about

their tools hard enough you know like um >> this is why there's so much AI fear I mean in some ways because not only do you have to do your job on a day-to-day, but you've also now got to learn a new

way of doing things and stay on top of this incredibly fast growing innovative cycle with dozens of companies with dozens of new tools and technology.

>> I mean, Google like I used to be a very avid reader like I used to try to read call it like you know a book every two weeks. I haven't touched a single book

weeks. I haven't touched a single book for the last 3 years or actually four years because I I'm like listen I I I as an investor I need to know what's happening right. So every spare moment

happening right. So every spare moment I'm learning about like you know these models playing with these models and there's a sense of like >> you're it's this maybe fear is the wrong

word but there is a sense of like being overwhelmed there's a lot going on right like no matter how hard you try you cannot keep up with everything you try your best right uh but there we live in

in very like profoundly in some ways fast times right now in a way that I've never seen >> in some ways unsettling unsettling yeah exactly we could go on for a very long

time. But yeah, this is this is fun. Um

time. But yeah, this is this is fun. Um

perhaps I'll ask you uh one question to kind of finish off here, right? Um

>> if you what are you know if you could you know we talked about kind of your minus one stories. We talked about obviously the

stories. We talked about obviously the team. We talked about a little bit how

team. We talked about a little bit how you construct good missions, but like if you could almost like put a clarion call out into the ecosystem for like hey these are some missions that you want to

see kind of get tackled. What would you kind of like ask people to think about?

>> I would like to ask people to think about broadly speaking AI and the physical world.

>> Yes.

>> Um I feel we are living a lot in the digital world. The reality is the

digital world. The reality is the physical world is and know there is lot of a lot of things that are wrong and busted and failing and can be done better with AI. So I am I'm a huge fan

of AI projects whether it's for defense resilience whether it's for building dams better humanoid robots how does AI manifest itself in the physical world and I think that's the other part of

being a polymath I think all of us learned computer science electrical engineering and mechanical engineering got a different beast now I think Elon is one of the first few people that has built a company that transcends all of

that and I think we're going to have to really bring a bunch of disciplines together computer science is not just in this thing toy world. How do we fuse electrical engine, computer science, mechanical engineing, all of those together?

>> Yeah. I mean, I think as a computer scientist myself, right, like the challenge to me has really been like, you know, >> CM which is known for robotics.

>> Robotics. I know. So, like my take is like my god like why can't we all build robots? Actually, probably the biggest

robots? Actually, probably the biggest area of investment for us at SPC uh like the new area of investment for us over the last call it two years has been kind of like physical like physical world and

AI. So, robotics, drones, uh, foundation

AI. So, robotics, drones, uh, foundation models specific to the physical world, uh, and so on. So, it's it's a very exciting time there. And honestly, even if 10% or 20% of of all of that stuff

comes to fruition, our lived experience will be very different.

>> That's right.

>> Yeah.

>> That's right.

>> Um, well, Google, thank you. You know, I like I said, we could continue talking forever. Your wealth of experience, you

forever. Your wealth of experience, you know, I've I feel as though I've learned a bunch. I'm kind of going to change

a bunch. I'm kind of going to change some of my like, you know, mental models on how to think about, you know, great founders and great things to invest in.

But thank you as always for everything you do for the community. Thank you for sharing some of your stories and your tips.

>> Thank you for starting SPC. It's a it's an incredible thing for the community.

Thank you.

>> I appreciate you. Uh, all right. Thank

you. All right. Take care.

>> That was another episode of Miners One from the team at South Park Commons.

Make sure to subscribe to our show wherever you listen to podcasts and find us on social at South Park Commons. And

thanks to our friends at Atomic Growth for their support in bringing this episode to