YouSaid · the spoken record

Ali Rowghani

lines on the record: 18
first: 2017-10-30
most recent: 2017-10-30
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Sure, you know, you mentioned segment and Peter Reinhardt. This was a recent investment we made. We really love the team first and foremost. Peter and his two co-founders, Ilya and Calvin. You know, they're creating a new product category and they're the leader in this new product category, this customer data platform. And it resides at a very strategic layer of the analytics stack. And there's a longer-term possibility as they continue to build out the product of a developer platform on top of segment and segment data. So it was a rare combination of factors in terms of the team, the strategic positioning, and the potential in the future that got us extremely excited about segment.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, I think one of the unfortunate things that's happened in our industry is there are many startups that actually I think have been damaged simply because of the amount of capital that they've been able to raise. You know, I was a CFO earlier in my career and you need enough capital to be able to take risks and make mistakes, et cetera.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Professional mentor, I would probably say Ed Capmull, who is the founder and president of Pixar. I worked very closely with him for five years. He was my boss. And I refer to him sort of as a national treasure. He is such an incredible leader, but also such an unusual leader and such a humble and grounded human being. I learned a lot from him.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You know, it's funny. I'll have to, in a way, this is sort of Pixar thinking. And I haven't tested this as much in the venture world, but in Hollywood, in the filmmaking business, I think one of the things that's very differentiated about Pixar and what I also deeply believe is that a great team is more important than a great idea. And I think in Hollywood, like everyone's chasing scripts and ideas and this, that, and the other thing, and Pixar is just focused on the quality of the team that it's able to put together. The idea being a great team will fix an idea that's mediocre or throw it out and come up with a better one. And I think in the venture business, sometimes there is maybe a little bit too much of a focus on the idea, the product, the market opportunity, and maybe not enough of an emphasis on the team. So that's what I would say.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Honestly, I'm sort of nerdy here. I love biographies and I love biographies sometimes of historical people because I feel like you learn a lot from the hardships that they endured and how they sort of overcame them. And the one that comes to mind is there's a great three-part biography of Theodore Roosevelt. And I like the first one the best, the rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris. He just led such an incredible life and overcame such incredible hardship that I would say that's the one that comes to mind.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Making a decision to invest and realizing if that decision was a good decision. It takes time for companies to grow and mature. And as a funny analogy, if you play billiards, I sometimes feel like being an investor is like taking a lot of time lining up your shot. And then it's lined up perfectly, you're happy with it, you strike the cue ball, and then you have to turn your back and come back in a few years to see if the ball went in. And that's been a surprise for me.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Challenge about making the transition from operated to VC for you. You know, I think the biggest challenge is as an operator, almost every decision you make, you can either test at small scale to see if it works, or reverse it if it doesn't work. And as an investor, once you've made an investment, there's really no reversing it. There's no such thing as trying it in small scale. You know, it's more of a binary decision. It's almost like being a hunter. If you're hunting for deer and once you decide to shoot a deer, it's sort of over. You've shot the deer and you can't test that in small scale. Now, hunting and investing are different in many, many ways, but the sort of finality of the investing decision and your inability to test things at small scale or undo them, I think is probably the biggest challenge that I've encountered anyway. On the alternate side, what about the biggest surprise about the move to VC? Maybe one that's not obvious unless you're in VC. I would say the biggest surprise is the time gap between”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Example judgment about people, every leader, no matter how good, makes hiring mistakes. But there's a lot of things that you can do in making a hiring decision to improve your odds and to get better and better so that your success rate improves over time. As an example, you know, I know founders who, for instance, have never hired a CFO before. And before they launched their CFO hiring process, they will make it a point to meet the five best CFOs that they can be introduced to. Not to recruit them, but to just get a sense of the texture of what that great CFO kind of looks and feels like so that they've improved their sense of judgment when it comes to evaluating a CFO for their own company. In each of these areas, there are ways that someone can improve. And so I don't really disqualify anyone from being able to become a great leader. No, I absolutely love that. But I do want to discuss, before we move into the quick fire round, an element of transition moving from operator to VC. So talk to me, Ali. What's been the big...”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“So I'd love to hear how you think about that, especially in relation to deep tech scientific-based founders. You know, one of my core beliefs is that everyone can get better as a leader. And I think that it's certainly true that some people are blessed with some natural characteristics or some natural things that they're comfortable with that makes it easier. But as I mentioned, one of the inspiring things about the observation that great leaders are very, very diverse, there's not one formula to being a great leader. What that means is that we all actually have the capability to be great leaders. I do believe that. If you're an extrovert or an introvert, if you are very vocal or if you're not, if you prefer verbal communication or written communication, I think that as long as you can excel at the three things that I mentioned, clarity of thought and communication, your ability to judge people and your commitment and integrity to a cause. And those are all things that you can work on. You know, I mean, just to choose one.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“They see that other people don't see that they intend to solve. It's very important to evaluate how their skill at evaluating people and hiring and building a great leadership team around them. And that really comes down to their judgment about people. And finally, when we make an investment at the YC early stage or at a later stage, you know, these are very long-term relationships that you have with founders. And as I mentioned, there's going to be all sorts of ups and downs and hardships to overcome. And so assessing the integrity and personal commitment of an entrepreneur is also really critical. So I think those are, as I look at it, three pretty crucial things to evaluate when you're evaluating the quality of the team. And then later on, after you invest, these are also areas that you can help people kind of get better in these areas. Because in the world of deep tech, often it's the case that maybe more scientific-based founders sometimes lack those leadership skills and personal skills previously mentioned.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And there are going to be ups and downs always. And what really helps you overcome those and have people follow you, continue to follow you, stay loyal to you despite challenges is a core integrity and commitment that you show to the cause. So I think those three things are fundamental, but everything else can change. I do have to ask then, how do you think with that experience and knowledge that affects how you evaluate and analyze founders now on the other side of the table as a VC with the continuity fund? You know, I think assessing the quality of a leadership team and the quality of a CEO is pretty fundamental to this job. You know, I describe those three characteristics that I think all great leaders share. And when you're evaluating a team of entrepreneurs, I think those same three criteria are important. I think it's very important that an entrepreneur be able to describe in a compelling, concise, clear way, what is the problem they're trying to solve and why, and how does their approach, what is their unique perspective on the universe or their customer?”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“It changes, then it's very hard to lead. The second is great leaders have exceptional judgment about people. They choose the right people to work with them. They choose the right people to give authority to. And if you make the wrong decisions, if you have bad judgment about people, it's very difficult to lead an organization. And then finally, great leaders have exceptional personal integrity and commitment. Building a company or leading an organization.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, I think the biggest lesson that I took is that there's not one formula to being a great leader. All of the folks that you just mentioned and other great leaders like Jack Dorsey or Bob Eiger, et cetera, that have had the privilege to work very closely with, they're also different. I think the lesson there is that if you aspire to be a great leader, you can't seek to copy Steve Jobs or anyone else in your quest to be a great leader. You have to be yourself. But having said that, having observed the diversity of styles and approaches and demeanors of great leaders, there are, I think, three fundamental traits that all great leaders share. And I've thought a lot about this. I have actually written a blog post about this called How Do You Measure Leadership. But the three traits that I think are fundamental are, number one, great leaders all share an incredible clarity of thought and communication. And the reason that's important is you have to describe a compelling vision of the future that other people can understand, get excited about, and follow. And so if you can't do that, or if it's muddled,”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“My cheeks. And I thought to myself, God, how silly that I am crying while reading this script. I can't believe this. I'm such a kid. And then I wiped the tears away and I look up at the rest of the company leadership basically sitting around me and everyone was crying. And it's a memory I'll always take with me. And it really more than anything told us that we had a great film on our hands.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“And then after years of waiting, Toy Story 2, I remind you, came out in 1999, and Toy Story three came out in 2010. So after a very long wait, finally in about 2009, we were, or 2008, we were reading the first draft of the Toy Story 3 script. And the way they did it is called a table read, a group of creative leaders and executive leaders were sitting around a table. And everybody was a different person was reading each of the parts. So somebody was Buzz Lightyear and somebody was woody and so on and so forth. And it was great fun. You know, they went through the script and it was heartwarming and funny, et cetera. And it reaches the end of the script. It's the scene where Andy's grown up. He's going to college and he's giving his toys away to a little girl so that she can enjoy them. And as he starts to give Woody away, who's his favorite toy, as I'm listening and reading the script along with the actors, all of a sudden I feel myself tearing up and like tears kind of coming down.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“You helped this presentation get off to such a good start. So that's a Steve Jobs story. The other story I'll share is a little more sentimental. I'll try to keep this brief. When I joined Pixar, we had a distribution deal with Disney. And as part of that deal, Disney had the right to make sequels to Pixar films. So Disney had the right to make the sequel to Toy Story 3, which was an incredible, I can't exaggerate what an emotional issue that was for the Pixar folks that Disney was producing Toy Story 3 and they weren't. But, you know, they thought of the films as their children, their creative product, and they really wanted to make the sequel to Toy Story 3 themselves. So fast forward a few years, we sold the company to Disney in 2006. And as part of that transaction, Disney naturally closed down their own production efforts on Toy Story 3 and gave the film back to Pixar. And so Pixar put Toy Story 3 into production. The original gang of creators who made Toy Story One got together. They had their offsite and brainstorm. They hired a very talented writer named Michael Arnt to write the first version of the script.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Steve suddenly kind of comes around the corner holding a bottle of smart water and he looks at me and he had a very distinctive glare, a very intense look about him. And he looked at me, glared at me, looked at the presentation. He looked back at me. He looked back at the presentation, and he looked at me and said, keynote. And I looked over at Ed and Ed's looking sheepishly at me. And I look back at Steven. I said, of course. And he said, how did you like it? And I said, Steve, I loved it. And the intense glare in his eyes sort of dissipated. He started smiling and he walked over, pulled a chair back, and sat down. And I looked over at Ed and I thought, oh my God, Ed, I could kiss you right now.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source
“Yeah, and software that I'd never used before. And so I finished. It's by this time 2 33 in the morning. I'd finally put it together. I'd click back through, built the animations, et cetera. And Harry, I tell you, when I was done, it looked indistinguishable from the presentation that I'd had in PowerPoint six hours earlier. And I was so mad at myself and so mad at Ed for giving me such terrible advice to like basically do this monkey work to convert this one presentation from PowerPoint to keynote and have it look absolutely indistinguishable to what I'd started with. I thought it was some test of my endurance. So the next day, it's time to present and it's about three o'clock in the afternoon and Steve is running about 10 minutes late and I never saw Steve ever carrying anything except a bottle of water. He never had a bag or papers or anything. And he always moved very quickly. And so the room was full, all the executives at the company were there. And I was standing in front and the presentation was projecting behind me.”
2017-10-30 · The Twenty Minute VC · 20VC: YC's Ali Rowghani on Leadership Lessons From Steve Jobs, Ed Catmull and Jack Dorsey & The 3 Traits All Truly Successful Leaders Share · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source