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My name is John Doe at Kleiner Perkins said, one time he said,
if you're trying to figure out if you're an entrepreneur, you're not,
which I always thought was kind of interesting.
If you need structure, then nothing wrong with that.
Big companies need a lot of people, they're good places to work.
And if that's you, that's fine, go big.
Lots of big companies recruiting here.
Lots of big companies are great places to work for entire careers.
Career transitions that I've watched, are historically quite easy,
from large companies to small ones, and quite hard from small ones to large ones.
And so if you are going to go from a big company background into
the entrepreneurial world, think long and
hard about that because it won't be that easy to go back where you came from.
Maybe if it's a year or two, and you duck back quick or
you go back to the company you work for, you might be able to do it.
But then I would almost say you weren't really all that committed to going into
the startup world in the first place.
If you were looking for an opportunity to go back.
Like I said, if it scares you, go big.
The failures, particularly in
the entrepreneurial community here,
are really almost no big deal.
But they tend to be perceived as a much bigger deal by the bigger companies.
The bigger, more mature companies, and it's just a fact of life.
I think many of you have probably experienced that.
So I think the likelihood is, if you are committing to an entrepreneurial
career path, that's a commitment you need to make.
And you need to probably believe that it's a career long commitment,
that that's where you're going to spend the rest of your career.
Can you handle the risk?
What do you do if it fails?
Some cultures, some geographies, failure is really hard.
It's really hard to explain or somebody said once,
how are you going to go home and tell your mother that your company failed?
He grew up around Silicon Valley, was like, okay, big deal.
What are you going to do next?
But there's some places in the country and
in the world where that's going to be really hard for you.
And if it is, and you don't feel like you're up for it,
maybe that's not where you ought to go.
Are the leaders of the startup professionals or are they friends?
I put up a big red flag every time I see a startup that's three college roommates to
get together because they want to start a company, and I'll be the CEO and so
you'd be the marketing VP, and what do you want to be?
Okay, engineering.
Wow, we got to have one.
Okay, well, you're really not very good.
That's a bad way to get a company started.
And if you get into a company where the officers are friends, and
they wouldn't be picked for their talent in a fair fight against other people,
this has a very high probability of coming out with
the worst possible outcome you could imagine.
Which is you lose the company, you lose the job, and
you probably lose your friends in the process.
So I just say, massive caveats on going in any startup where a bunch
of your friends get together and choose upsides.
Is the financing solid for at least a year?
Because you don't want to be coming into something,
unless there's at least a year of runway there before the company
needs to raise money, because maybe it won't, and that's tough.
As I said, if it's a tough choice, say no.
If it's a startup, you want to be focused on a couple of things.
And I say, will you be at the table?
At the table means, are you going to be in the group,
the small group of people that makes the key decisions?
They're in a closed room with the door closed when something big is coming down,
and bet the company or really important decisions have to be made.
If you're at that table, doesn't matter a whole lot what your job title is,
what your compensation is really, or any else because it'll all be taken care of.
If you're not at the table, and you're outside looking through the keyhole trying
to figure out what's going on in that room when the key decisions are being made.
I would say to you, if it's a start up, most of the time,
the risk reward ratio for you is not right.
That puts you in the world of four box matrixes,
in the high risk, low reward box, and I don't think that's
a box that you ought to be intentionally aiming yourself to.
That if the company is wildly successful, you make a little bit of money,
and you weren't really part of the team that drove it.
On the other hand, if you're in the high risk,
high reward box, yeah, that can be great.
That's a mature startup.
That's not a pure startup from zero.
If they've done a series B, and they've got financing for a year or more,
and they're growing rapidly, then you might relax that because they're going to
be hiring a lot of people, and they're not all going to have a seat at the key table.
Then the question though to ask is, will I have a seat at some interesting table?
And does the person that I'm going to be working for
maybe have a seat at the big table?
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