YouSaid · the spoken record

Alexis Ohanian

lines on the record
105
first
2014-10-09
most recent
2014-10-09
sittings or episodes
1
sources
podcast

Every line below is reproduced as it was said and linked to the record it came from. Nothing here is summarised or generated. Directory · Search · Corrections

  1. “At Alexis ALXIS OHANY OH ANIWA, it's a little long and ethnic, but there are not so many Alexis Ohanians out there, so I got that unlock and got a rep, got to rep the Armenian thing. So there's no way I was not going to put my last name in there.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  2. “Won't be the last time either. It won't be the last time. It's going to still be time for that. Because look, right, at the end of the day, reclassifying broadband is Title II just comes down to making sure, and Jimmy Kimmel did a nice illustration of this. John Oliver did a great one as well in his show. But it just comes down to making sure that all those bits are treated equally. And so if Tim Ferris makes an amazing podcast, anyone of you can hear it as easily, as quickly, as any other content, as any other podcast, whether it's coming from the White House or whether it's coming from NBC, like it's the exact same. And it should be treated that way because it lets the next Tim Ferris come up with the same level playing field that you had and the White House has and NBC has to compete for our attention.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  3. “They're awesome, or fight for the future. org. They are a very startup being nonprofit that works to expand the internet's power for good, and they've been on the front lines of this whole thing. You probably saw the internet slowdown day. Everyone, I mean, it was red at Imager, Tumblr, everyone was participating. And that was a record for number of comments sent to the FCC. So yay, internet. So hopefully this is another SOPA PIPA situation. And all of us can save the internet one more time. So thank you if you helped.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  4. “Oh man, okay, so technically they should have taken action a few days ago because the open comment period just ended. But let me thank a few people 3.7 million people Basically sent in a message to the FCC saying don't fuck up the internet. Don't let cable companies screw up the internet, preserve net neutrality by reclassifying broadband as Title II, which is not the sexiest thing, but it's DC. But it's really, really important we get this right. And right now we're going to have these open sort of discussions. The FCC is having these open forums now for the next few weeks. So basically pay attention. And the best group actually to stay on top of this stuff right now is either EFF, which has just always been on point for protecting our digital rights.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  5. “And this all came full circle, man. I want to thank you because it was on for our work week that I dropped the first excerpt of my book without their permission when it launched last October. So it's almost, it's been a year now, and here we are full circle and I'm dropping my podcast.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  6. “Amazing. And he runs a company called Cultivated Wit. I'm also talking to a friend of mine, a supermodel named Cameron Russell, who has an amazing TED talk, one of the top 10 most viewed about beauty. She started an amazing activist group and sort of creative space in Brooklyn. But all these people are using the internet in unconventional ways to just make stuff, to create. And I want to show them off. And then the other section of the podcast is called Office Hours, which is just a riff off of what we do all the time as investors and partners. And that's just basically doing Skype chats with, I'll be doing Skype chats with random people from all over the internet who want to get some feedback, want to have some office hours with me about whatever they're working on. And we got some really interesting folks. I went to the R entrepreneur, or no, our startup subreddit a couple weeks ago said, hey, what's up? Holler at me if you want to do this segment. And we had a bunch of great people. So if you are interested in even coming on the show, you should tweet at.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  7. “Headline because you all are going to wait until the last day is October 14th So put your calendar, set your deadline for October 13th. I should have just told people the 13th. Yeah, it's October 13th. Get it in by October 13th. Tweet at me when you do so I can thank you for sending in that avocation. And then I'm also getting into this podcasting game, Tim. Starting up a little thing. It's called NYRD Radio. That's New York Research and Development or Nerd Radio. And it's just going to be basically it's an extension of the without the permission book and tour in that I want to talk to people who are doing really cool stuff using the internet to be entrepreneurial in weird, interesting ways. So not just founders of startups, but like comedians. My first guest is Beritunde Thurston.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  8. “All right, well, I am a partner now at Y Combinator. I joined as a full-time partner last batch in June, and we have another batch coming up. And we're taking applications right now. So because I know every single one of you already signed up to listen to the Stanford class we're going to be teaching how to start a startup, you should also go and apply at apply.y combinator.com. And then we also accept nonprofits. By the way, we have some amazing Watsi W-A-T-S-I was an amazing nonprofit that went through the program. And we're willing and able to take applications for the next 27 days to apply. So apply to Y Combinator and let them know Alexis sent you. I don't actually think there's a section in the form for that.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  9. “Dude, I love Pak Pok. Annie, it's weird because it's like it's not pad Thai. I'm not an authority on Thai food. And the dude's white. So I know a lot of people are going to be really skeptical and be like, really? But he actually does it. He actually does a really good job of screw that stuff. Wait, you're not going to set me up with this Beyonce date?”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  10. “Could take her out whiskey and waffle that becomes the theme. There's a good Thai place near me called Pak Pak, which is amazing. Oh”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  11. “I could barely, I got a shaker and all that stuff, and I tried to make a Manhattan, and it just tasted like garbage. And so I just went back to drinking whiskey”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  12. “Oh, well, let's change that then. If she's coming over for dinner, I'll go with Beyonce, because then my girlfriend would totally be down with that.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  13. “Not Let me hold me think. What movie have I seen lately? I'm totally blanking. I did really appreciate the choreography and the Nikki Minaj Anaconda video. For whatever that's worth”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  14. “My current celebrity crush Wow man, this is should this be taking me so long? I should ask my girlfriend because she would know better than I would.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  15. “TechRudge Disrupt or whatever thing event, right? If you really believe that stuff you said, then it's actually in your best interest to hold on to that and not cash out a bit early and keep putting everything you can because it has an effect on the rest of your company. And I always want to concede that I don't know how to run a company better than the founder does. I know that as an investor. But at the very least, have that be your starting point for when you go through that process.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  16. “Well, and I think, okay, so if a founder listening wants to take something away instead of my just general ambivalence about it, consider, all right, if we all believe that is not just Tim and me, but you as a founder, if we all believe that your company is going to be a multi-billion dollar business one day and you don't have the extenuating circumstances, right? There's no student loan debt, family stuff. Shouldn't it be in everyone's interest, especially yours, to hold on to as much of that equity as possible so that in three or five or ten years when the IPO, you're actually getting far more valued from it? It's weird because we all kind of do this dance, right? We all kind of play this game as investors and founders and potential acquirers. And this all just, there's a lot of this other stuff. But like at the very, very core of it, if you believe in your business and if you believe it's going to change the fucking world, like you said.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  17. “Great portfolio. They just, they're really building the future. It really depends on who it is. And so that becomes the first thing where like, all right, if this is just, oh, hey, look, look, people like us, it's certainly less leverage or less leverageable than, oh, hey, here is like, this is a legit company where it makes a lot. It actually makes a lot of sense for that acquiring company. There's more leverage sort of implicit in the offer. And it's sort of validates the price and then thus validates the hey. But look, we're going to grow a billion dollar company out of this. And so we just need to take some money off the table, et cetera, et cetera. Dude, it's case by case. I would say I am ambivalent about it. I'm struggling to decide how I feel. So it's a little...”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  18. “You know, I think, oh man, all right. So part of it definitely depends on who made the acquisition offer, right? Like if it's Cloud Town Incorporated. I'm going to be like”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  19. “That's a real problem. And again, if you can sort of factor out the extenuating circumstances, I think that's where it starts to be really dicey. And when you start talking about later stage, I start caring a lot less because I really, I tend to be very founder friendly. I think a lot of, I think the investors are going to win the long term realize that they have to be.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  20. “That extenuating circumstance, like, I can't really begrudge them for that. But I do think there is a growing tendency now to see this happening just kind of because. And having that peace of mind, again, let's assume the slate gets cleared. It's not student loan debt. Let's say you have zero debt. If you're at that point as a founder, I think you are best aligned with your company because you value that equity you have. You want to grow this into an amazing thing. You're all on that same sort of level-ish with your employees, which is so important. Where it becomes a real problem is when founders are basically building companies to get to a Series A to get a couple million in the bank and then just kind of like run their companies and putting that in their quotes for another few years just to see what happens.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  21. “But I've seen it at an A round now that I think about it. I've seen it in some instances where I haven't begrudged it because it was, and you end up having to trust the founder. Like as an investor, I'm not going to be like, show me your financial records, but you have founders who have a ton of student loan debt. They just want cleared. Or they have oftentimes there's like a family situation. Someone needs a lot of money. In instances where there is”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  22. “Even Seems like It gets dicey, right? I certainly don't begrudge. It becomes, you know, at the later stages, I really do think it starts aligning most everyone's interest. Again, so you have to control for assholes. So you'd hope to be some percentage of founders who will get that personal milestone checked off and it starts becoming a problem. Hopefully investors identify that earlier. Hopefully those folks get to some extent managed, but that is not always going to be the case. But I tend to believe the majority of folks will get to that point are not in that category. But I'm an optimistic guy.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  23. “And so the investors that play into that are definitely creating a kind of culture that is not optimal for great companies.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  24. “Because you want to, I mean, this is your seed round. You just want to get back to doing the important shit. You want to get back to running your company and have enough money to go do that. Find the optimal way to get the amount of money you need to get to that Series A or to that next step or maybe to not even needing a Series A and get back to running your business. And if you start over-optimizing for valuation or you start falling in love with the investing process, right? There are people who love the fundraising process. People love fundraising. You get to go out, talk shop, right? Maybe go out for dinner. Founders who get seduced by that end up failing”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  25. “Okay. Oh, all right. Well, dude, if I'm playing with my own money, I'm making this bet partially because, okay, well, so it gets a little weird, right? I've definitely made bets that were partially just heart and weren't necessarily like, this is absolutely going to be a multi-billion dollar company one day. But even actually, even factoring that in, I wouldn't really care about the valuation because. And I do, however, wonder, it does seem like times are really good and capital is still really flush. And that has to, right, this whole business thing comes in cycles. That has to come at some point to an end. And I always do chafe a bit. It chafes me when I see startups really trying to optimize for valuation at the early stage.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  26. “Bad school. So, no, it's an amazing school. No, no, it's amazing school. Amazing school. Very grateful for that. But it's funny. All my friends were engineers and I didn't like talking about grades with them because the engineering school is the land of deflation, right? That is where they go to crush souls. Whereas history majors, and I also majored in business, it was like the business was the best part because it was like, great, the five of you colored in the lines A's. But anyway, okay, so, you know, obviously different investors have different sort of expectations, right? If it's an angel investor, let's assume you're...”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  27. “So I can't really speak to great inflation because I didn't go to an ivory school Actually, you know what, though, I have to call myself out because although I went to UVA, I was a humanities major. Well, and by the way.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  28. “And hopefully that's a bigger challenge to tech because it really can, I mean, we had two nuclear energy companies. We had a handful of biotech companies in the last batch of YC, some amazing nonprofits. I mean, companies that are fighting cancer, like all kinds of, like a nonprofit, the immunity project that wants to create an HIV vaccine, a vaccine for HIV. Like it's amazing to me that this thing has grown to this point because I remember nine years ago and it was just like Paul and Jessica and Robert and Trevor in this little house and just we're all just trying to make our websites. And I wanted to keep growing and I want our industry more broadly to be able to solve some really amazing problems, but being assholes for our early stage companies is not a good way to do it.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  29. “Great work. Amazing organization, and I ran a little tilt campaign. This is last year. We funded every single STEM classroom in Brooklyn on donors' shoes. So thank you to all of you who backed that and you helped me out with that. Or actually, no, it was a prize yield campaign. Sorry, tilt guys. It was a prize yellow campaign. But the point is, one of the reasons why I'm so interested and involved with these organizations is because I really do believe in this technology. And I also believe that it's only going to live up to so much of its potential if we miss out a huge portion of our population that's not even connected, let alone taking advantage of it and able to create on it and code and build and have that access and awareness. So dude, it's a big thing. I know this just started with asshole founders. But my advice to them, seriously, for all of you listening, you haven't done shit yet. So just relax, okay? Don't act like that. You're not doing yourself any favors.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  30. “And we've been seeing this backlash a good bit in the mainstream media, a good bit on the blogs and whatnot. And in the public, certainly in San Francisco. And again, I've seen this as an outsider, right? So I don't live in San Francisco, but I've obviously seen all this stuff. And I really hope it's a chance for tech, pinning in really broad strokes here, to take a little bit more of a perspective on where we're at. And for all the people who are acting like they're already Steve Jobs, like just stop, that's not going to help, please. And for all of us, let's find ways for tech to live up to the ideals we hope it can be. I really do believe in the power of this technology. I really do believe in the power of software and the internet. But it's going to take work for us to get it to where we want it to be. And acting like assholes is one way to definitely not do that. And more broadly, I want to see, and one of the reasons I work with a lot of the nonprofits I work with, and you and I are, of course, both on the advisory board of donorschoose.org.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  31. “It's more like they were able to be successful in spite of the fact that they were douchebags. It's a frustrating thing because, I mean, I see this speaking really broadly for like the valley and tech. In a matter of years, we the nerds, we have been championed a lot. We've been lionized a lot. They made films about us. It has become kind of cool, right? It's the new band, right? To start a startup is having a band. And that's been great. And I'm happy because generally speaking, I want more people to be thinking of themselves as entrepreneurs. And I would love it if we had a world where teenagers and kids were like, man, it'd be really cool to build a business or to use technology to make the world suck less one day. Like that's great. That is a general thing is something that I like. Then, though, we reach these new heights and what was it, the wax on our wings started to melt.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  32. “But it is still there, right? I've encountered it for sure. And I don't know the way to combat it other than to keep reminding people if you haven't done shit yet, don't act like you have. That is not correlation is unequal causation when you see people like Jobs and Ellison. Yes, they had serious attitude problems. That is not why they were successful.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  33. “So those are my biases. I think it is a problem within the valley. I think broadly you could say it's a problem in tech, but I think it's exacerbated in the valley. So the very first YC dinner, so the partners go around and we'll give some sort of advice for how to make the most out of the next three months. And one of my favorite things to say, and what you'll hear the partner is always saying is like, congratulations, this means. Think the challenge is it's twofold. It's one that we just as humans, no one's going to tell a story or write an article about a founder who is respectful and reasonable. We're going to think of the outliers. We're going to think of the assholes. And those are the ones that are going to get the attention. And that's not to say that's just sort of a human nature thing. So that's part of the sample bias.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  34. “So, okay, obviously, I mean, this stuff is bad form. And this is actually part of the reason why I'm so excited for the second season of Silicon Valley on HBO. And I live it. Let's keep mine, right? I'm a partner at OC. I live in Brooklyn. I spent about half my time each place. I was born in New York. I'm very much, I've got East Coast bias. I mean, it is the right coast, right, Tim? Am I right? It is the right coast.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  35. “Well, first and foremost, I need to watch this video, and then maybe I can create my own, the public school hustle I went to UVA, bitch. No, I would not do that. You should absolutely do that.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  36. “But you should go and find your notification email because probably everyone probably sends it. I don't care if you're doing subscription widgets or what, you probably have a notification email. And if it is not half as awesome as the one that Tim just read from Derek, work to make it there. Just invest that little bit of time to make a little bit more human or, you know, depending on your brand, right? A little funnier or a little more just different or a little more whatever, it'll be worth it. And that's my challenge. There you go. You can tweet at me too when you did it, and I'll give you a favorite.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  37. “Boom, here we go. A challenge from Alexis. Assuming every one of them is an entrepreneur or has some kind of side hustle, they should all go right now. Wait till the podcast is over. Or no, pause it unless you're driving. Don't do this right now if you're driving.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  38. “And the bar sets so low, like go above and beyond, make, strive to make a great experience, and you'll get, I mean, this guy, I'm just, I'm stereotyping here, but I suspect he was not like user 1000 on Twitter, right? And he's not an early adopter, but he had an experience there that was just above and beyond his wallet expectations. He picked up the damn phone to call and just leave a voicemail with your customer service just to say how amazing this was. And it's like obviously, and obviously they closed the feedback loop, right? They told, and of course they passed along the message to George, who I'm sure enjoyed it. But that's a sign you're really on to something because it isn't actually that hard. And we see Kevin Hale, who's another partner, Y Combinator, founder of Wufu, right? Like, this is...”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  39. “and I am so excited for your company, Bellhops. I'm going to tell all my friends and click. It was just like, and it was like, it's shit like that. I mean, the bar, I mean, founders have to realize the bar is set so low because most companies stop giving a fuck so long ago.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  40. “It though at least run back to their inbox and be like and go find something, but hopefully they'll respond immediately and say, oh, here's one we got last week and it's some person effusively saying, oh, this is the greatest thing ever. And one startup even, oh man, they sent me a voicemail. The startup's called Get Bellhops and they do like short-term moves. And it's powered by a bunch of college students who do all these short-term moves and it's on-demand really great. And they had this voicemail from some guy, an older gentleman, who was basically like, I just want to let y'all know that he's from the south, I guess. The gentleman, let's say George, who came over and helped me with my move, was one of the finest young men I have ever met. I was worried about this generation until I met George. He is an upstanding young man.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  41. “For an example of something that they've done, what have you built into your product? Give me an example of something you built into your product or your service that you're especially proud of that is one of these touch points for someone to like to just go, wow, or feel this sense of like, whoa, like we're still using robots the end of the day, right? We're still using a computer that is soulless or an iPhone that may look nice but is devoid of soul. And if you can inject this life into your software, into the copy or into the whatever, you can connect with people in a way. I mean, people still fucking tweet about error messages on Hipmunk. And it's an error message. Like, why are they doing that? Because it gave them a moment of levity while they were doing something that they expected to be pretty boring, like searching for a flight. And along with that, I ask for their best piece of feedback email from the last couple of weeks or best feedback tweet. I want to see that founders are responding to every feedback email. So this isn't a bad way to at least, they'll at least run back to the, even if they have.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  42. “Sorry, Dave. So I really, really, really love building brands that people love. I know that gets really eye-rolly where it's like, oh, right, building brands. Like, I don't know. It's a new flavor of Pepsi. It's this new brand. But what's so cool now, and you're a great example of this, because of all these tools we have to interact with people in real time at scale, it is possible to build these experiences, build relationships between your users or your fancy or whatever on a much smaller budget in a way that we just never seen before. And a lot of what I think carried Reddit and HitMonk was that, you know, Steve and I, in the product that we built and the way that we engaged with our users really obsessed over creating an experience that we thought was special that made people go like, whoa, made them laugh sometimes because we have like jokes in the error messages, that kind of thing. And I asked people.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  43. “It would be, oh, you know what? I do ask this is one that I love asking. So I'm all, oh, it's hell 9000. I Googled that. I did not know. Damn it. All right. Sorry”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  44. “And that's part of the reason why, and I see this in a lot of great investors. I know this is like, as you just actually talked about with some of your blog posts, I think being an investor is, it gets way more credit than it deserves. But I think good investors are ones who are intellectually curious and who want to learn about new stuff and be able to say that they've had at least some serious interaction or experience with a variety of industries and people and all that stuff. And so that's me just trying to optimize for more moments where I can kind of like Jedi mind meld with another, with a startup that's working on something in industry that I don't necessarily understand as well as they do, not as fundamentally because I'm not solving that problem, but have enough experience with to be like, yes, got it. I see this is absolutely where the world is heading and you are in the best position possible and you're the best team possible to bring this idea to fruition in that new world.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  45. “So happened that because of my own experience, I've been working with a bunch of webcomic artists for years through Redpig, XKCD, Saturday morning, breakfast cereal, and I even had a couple musicians like Lester Chambers, helping him with a Kickstarter. And I knew that what artists in the New World wanted was not just a way to try a one-time project like on Kickstarter, Indiegogo, but to actually have recurring revenue. Like being an artist is no longer binary now. It's not starving artists or successful. It's actually like you can make three grand a month making a cacapella video game theme song music videos from your apartment in Oklahoma, which is actually a guy on Patreon Smooth McGroove. The founders, like in the Teesprings example, had seen something. So I guess the question would be, what have you seen? What are you doing that the world or that everyone else doesn't yet realize is a really big fucking deal? And I guess we actually, I think we have a question kind of like that on the application. But that's the one that really gets me going, especially if it overlaps with something that I personally really.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  46. “Are you squirming right now as I ask you this question? But it also, the growth question can also be thought about as, all right, okay, then you start looking at things like, well, all right, have you done, say, a cohort analysis? Have you actually taken a look to see the users who've been around for three months? Like, what are they still doing today? How many people, you know, these growth numbers are great? How many times they actually opening the app or how many times per month are they ordering widget or whatever the applicable thing is there's a way to get a little deeper in the numbers? That's almost the baseline, right? That's the kind of thing that gets you in YC. The thing that gets me, I guess, personally really excited is also sort of to talk to the Teespring reference or even, oh, another one would be like Patreon. That was something where the founders were building something and knew something about the how the world was going to be that everyone else hadn't yet.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  47. “Assigned work, the stuff we were doing just because we enjoyed learning and being curious and making things, that's the kind of X factor that I find in successful founders. They are curious for just the sake of it. They are hungry to learn and try new stuff and challenge themselves. And it's weird. I know there are certain things where I am not, let's say that curious or ambitious or hungry, right? Like physically, for instance, still working on that. Not like waking up in the morning trying to optimize my kettlebell exercises. But when it comes to learning about stuff and making stuff, I definitely find that in me and I see it in a lot of successful founders, in all kinds of different forms, right? It could just be learning about 14th century tapestries, right? But like having shown that you have this hunger to learn and to do is generally a good sign. And then, you know, the other kind of expected stuff with like, well, okay, so obviously you're going to want to see the growth stuff. That's kind of that.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  48. “One of the favorites that's not only application anymore is how are you and your founders animals describe it? And I guess it got dropped because it's kind of obscure and a little weird, right? How does one describe that? And we're not asking for spirit animals, though I do love asking that question. So maybe I would put that on mine. But I remember when Steve and I filled it out, I'll never forget Steve had a really good quip. It was animals, question mark. I guess I could have just said that with my voice. Let's try that again. Got to work my voice acting. Animals? We're a freaking zoo. And I was like, well done, Steve. Let's keep going. And we just talked about how the projects we've been working on in college just for giggles, right? The stuff outside of.”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  49. “That's a really good thing. The form has been refined over the years, and it's really good. I think, okay, so 10, I don't know if I can keep count, but okay, what do I”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT

  50. “Want to do that And that's why, too, Tim, I love, I don't know when that switch got flipped for you, but you were such a maven for that. Like, when did that happen?”

    2014-10-09 · The Tim Ferriss Show · Ep 36: Alexis Ohanian on Y Combinator, Getting Punched, and Picking Winners · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT