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Venture Capitalist Vinod Khosla on Perseverance

Vinod Khosla is a legend in Silicon Valley.  He's the powerhouse behind Khosla Ventures.  Way before that, he was one of the founders of Sun Microsystems, and then became a general partner at Kleiner Perkins.  He's also done many other amazing things.  Vinod gave the keynote at Stanford's recent Graduate Business School event. Afterwards, I gave a breakout session talk with Heidi Roizen, where she called me a cockroach. Vinod's keynote contained all the stuff you'd expect to hear from a super successful entrepreneur and VC.  For most people, I'd imagine it was underwhelming in its obviousness, but only because hearing someone talk about what it takes to be successful is so different from actually doing it.  Vinod offered no magic bullets.  Just a solid list of advice that any current or want-to-be entrepreneur has heard and internalized.  Things like, "Be a risk taker."  "Be a good listener."  That's the entire point of why I'm writing a blog about his talk.  There are no silver bullets.  The key is to execute flawlessly on the basics.  And that's so incredibly hard that most people don't do it.   Vinod highlighted the importance of perseverance in his talk.  But the actual example of how he got into Stanford business school is what makes it shine, and what separates him from so many others. When Vinod applied to business school, he was rejected.  Instead of accepting that, as most people would do, he actually arrived at Stanford on the first day of classes, and got a note passed via a friend to the dean of admissions.  Vinod told the dean that he was sure someone wouldn't show up for the first day of classes, and that Stanford should allow him to take that person's place, because he was already there.  And that's exactly what happened. Reading this, and with the benefit of hindsight, it's easy to say "that was awesome.  Well done, Vinod."  But that's biased thinking, because we already know it turned out well.  The real question to ask is, "Vinod, how many risks did you take that didn't pan out?  And how did you motivate yourself to keep trying after those failures?"   And I would ask you that same question.  How many risks have you taken that make you uncomfortable because it's likely that you'll fail?  And what do you do after you don't succeed?  Risks are obvious and awesome with hindsight, but terrifying in the present. I'll leave you with one last quote from Vinod.  He said that being a VC means investing in things with a high chance of failure, and he's willing to do that so long as the consequences of success are large.  His quote: "A 90% chance of failure sounds pretty bad.  But a 10% chance of changing the world seems like a pretty good deal." Well said, sir.   Executing flawlessly on the basics is hard, but it's what can separate you from your peer group.  You just have to believe in yourself and be willing to take the risk.   I did a breakout session with Heidi Roizen after Vinod's talk which delves into these themes in more detail.  Thanks to Stanford GSB student Nicholas Hinrichsen for  setting that up. Here's the video of Vinod's talk at Stanford's GSB event:  

A 9th Grader Takes a Leap that Terrifies MBA Students

I judged the NFTE Quarter Final competition at a local San Francisco high school today.  NFTE is an organization that teaches entrepreneurship to students in high school and younger. One of the pitches today was made by 9th grader Simran Pabla around a pilot program she's running at her school:  A business called Ready4Rain, which offers umbrellas to students so they don't get wet when they're going from building to building between classes.  You can see her full pitch to the judges here. I was so impressed with her that I later interviewed her in the school's cafeteria.  Here's a 9th grader who's currently running a pilot program for a startup concept she had.  And she's not alone.  Jocelyn Hernandez has sold over 20 of her custom iPhone cases at $40 each via her company, Functional Couture.  And Mariana Ponce has sold over 100 of her Corny Cups at $2.50 each.  In the past, I've done talks with Stanford MBAs, UVA McIntire business school students, and Georgetown MBAs and I consistently find that many of them are terrified to take the leap to becoming an entrepreneur by actually doing something, and not just talking about it.  Consistently, high school or younger age kids are willing to take more risks than college students.  It's almost like some switch gets flipped at some point in college that causes many students to stop seeing opportunities to be entrepreneurial, and become afraid to try jumping into the ones they do see. The interview above with Simran is great, partly because she's so honest about her motivations.  She simply saw an opportunity to solve a problem, and went for it.  She has no mortgage to worry about.  No kids to take care of.  Nothing to keep her from simply jumping to solve the problem she saw in front of her.  She just proves how simple it is to become an entrepreneur when it's what you really want to do. So, kudos to Simran, Jocelyn, Mariana and their NFTE colleagues.  I hope they never lose that risk-taking spirit.  What may just seem to be a high school competition is actually an opportunity to effect massive change through entrepreneurism.  The great thing about "creating something from nothing" is that nobody cares how old you are when you do it.  There's no reason any of these ideas couldn't morph into huge, real businesses.  All these kids need is the will to do it, and the means to try. If you're interested in volunteering for NFTE (something I love to do), drop me a comment below and I'll introduce you to someone who can help you figure out how you can really add value to the program.