Peter Thiel’s CS183: Startup – Class 5 Notes Essay

http://blakemasters.tumblr.com/post/21437840885/peter-thiels-cs183-startup-class-5-notes-essay

No one insight on how to build the team and culture. But themes

– smart people 
– be super picky
– hire for their passion never by paying more
– coherent early team doesn't debate they just do. You want uniformity and role playing
– yeah debate the marketing and strategy stuff 
– but it must be a team dynamic not a political party
– and… How to get people to leave Established Incumbents:

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Levchin: So the way to compete against the giants is not with money. Google will outbid you. They have oil derrick that spits out $30bn in search revenue every year. To win, you need to tell a story about cogs. At Google, you’re a cog. Whereas with me, you’re an instrumental piece of this great thing that we’ll build together. Articulate the vision. Don’t even try to pay well. Meet people’s cash flow needs. Pay them so they can cover their rent and go out every once in awhile. It’s not about cash. It’s about breaking through the wall of cynicism. It’s about making 1% of this new thing way more exciting than a couple hundred grand and a cubicle at Google.

Stephen Cohen:   We tend to massively underestimate the compounding returns of intelligence. As humans, we need to solve big problems. If you graduate Stanford at 22 and Google recruits you, you’ll work a 9-to-5. It’s probably more like an 11-to-3 in terms of hard work. They’ll pay well. It’s relaxing. But what they are actually doing is paying you to accept a much lower intellectual growth rate. When you recognize that intelligence is compounding, the cost of that missing long-term compounding is enormous. They’re not giving you the best opportunity of your life. Then a scary thing can happen: You might realize one day that you’ve lost your competitive edge. You won’t be the best anymore. You won’t be able to fall in love with new stuff. Things are cushy where you are. You get complacent and stall. So, run your prospective engineering hires through that narrative. Then show them the alternative: working at your startup.