Summary

On this episode of the 1st10 podcast, hosts Boris Epstein and Alexis Munger sit down with Ilya Sukhar, a seasoned entrepreneur, engineer, and venture capitalist. Ilya shares his journey from immigrating to the U.S. as a child to founding Parse, getting acquired by Facebook, and eventually transitioning into venture capital. Ilya shared with us his experiences building and scaling startups and his insights on what makes a successful founder and early-stage company.

Tune in to hear them talk about:

Advantages of Being a Technical Founder: Technical founders can quickly iterate and build products that meet customer needs.
Having Resilience: Founders who can persevere through challenges and build in less-hyped areas often develop stronger companies in the long run.
Conflict Resolution In Early Teams: Founders and early-engineers must test how they handle disagreements, as conflict resolution is crucial in the high-pressure environment of a startup.
Real-World AI: Ilya is particularly excited about AI applications that impact the physical world, such as smart cameras and healthcare devices, and believes these areas hold immense potential.

Specifically, don't miss the part where Ilya shared details about his unique, contrarian investment philosophy as a VC and what an AI-powered future might potentially look like!

Chapters:

00:00 Introductions & Icebreakers

05:24 A Soviet Immigrant And His American Dream Come True

09:29 The Addiction: Why Ilya Felt Attracted to Early-Stage Companies

12:33 Building Parse Through Serendipitous Symbiosis

17:26 Importance of Having a High Quality Early-Engineering Team

19:43 Facebook Acquisition and Life At Facebook

25:57 The YC Founder Brand: What Makes Them Unique?

28:33 Contrarian Investing: Finding Diamonds in the Rough

35:03 Real-World AI and the Future of Tech

37:26 Ilya's Advice for Founders and Engineers

40:41 Contact Details And Expectations

Quotes:

"America, despite its faults, is really quite special [...] It's pretty magical to be an American if you want to go start a company." - Ilya Sukhar (05:53)
"I haven't quite made up my mind whether people learn more from success or from failure. I think the people that get after it again, after a failure are very motivated in a way that I think is pretty special!" - Ilya Sukhar (17:11)
"I'm an early-stage person and a lot of why I got into investing is I just want to be involved in multiple projects at that stage." - Ilya Sukhar (30:25)
"I think a lot of VC is pattern-matching - for good and bad. And, I think if you really look in the sort of long-term lens, the great, great enduring companies are really odd in one fashion or another." - Ilya Sukhar (34:34)
"I relentlessly recommend referencing! It's just always astonishing to me how little energy some founders put into referencing prospective hires and vice-versa!" - Ilya Sukhar (39:31)