Innovation Through Constraints

My guest today is Dan Rose. Dan is the chairman of Coatue Ventures and has one of the most interesting collections of experiences of anyone I’ve talked to. He spent 20 years at Amazon and Facebook in their early days, working closely with Jeff Bezos, Andy Jassy, Mark Zuckerberg, and Sheryl Sandberg. He’s had a front-row seat to the defining products and founders of our era and his lessons from those experiences do not disappoint. Please enjoy this great discussion with Dan Rose.

For the full show notes, transcript, and links to mentioned content, check out the episode page here.

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Show Notes

[00:03:27] - [First question] - The story behind Amazon’s Kindle and the lessons it taught him

[00:09:19] - Amazon’s philosophy of working backwards and the most creative solutions he and his team had to come up inside of that framework 

[00:13:04] - What he did to convince publishers to get on board with his vision 

[00:16:02] - His overall experience of the relationship between innovation and constraints

[00:18:43] - Thoughts about the fine line between genius and nutcase 

[00:22:02] - What the key points of his theory on partnerships would be 

[00:24:28] - When advising portfolio companies becomes relevant 

[00:26:09] - The dark arts of building companies that could be adopted by partnerships 

[00:28:40] - Why he thinks the best technology companies drive strategy through product 

[00:32:23] - Resolving micro management while also giving skilled talent their own space

[00:36:07] - Where Javier Olivan fits into his ideal executive team 

[00:36:57] - What about growth requires its own expertise 

[00:37:35] - What makes Dave Schneider an ideal sales leader

[00:39:08] - The most stressful period of time while working at Facebook

[00:42:51] - General thoughts on great versus good business models in tech 

[00:45:36] - Topics where Jeff Bezos and Mark Zuckerberg would disagree the most 

[00:47:13] - Defining the platonic ideal of a great investor approaching corporate enterprises 

[00:50:25] - Overview of the investing environment we’re in today from coast to coast

[00:55:07] - What made Sheryl Sandberg so successful; Lean In

[01:00:35] - Why he started his career at Life Mastery selling personal growth seminars 

[01:05:47] - What will define the next generation of leaders 

[01:07:59] - A product he would build if he could that doesn’t exist yet

[01:08:59] - The kindest thing anyone has ever done for him