12: Keith Rabois, General Partner at Khosla Ventures

Hiring correctly and operating proficiently are two of the most complex and nuanced management skill sets necessary to lead an organization to success. This week, we dived into these topics much more deeply with Keith Rabois, General Partner at Khosla Ventures. Keith is a member of the famed PayPal Mafia — having worked closely with Peter Thiel, Elon Musk and Reid Hoffman amongst others in his early days — and has become a revered source of how to successfully hire and execute in Silicon Valley. Keith held Executive roles at PayPal, LinkedIn, Slide and Square prior to joining Khosla Ventures.  This conversation was a ton of fun and we talked through a bunch of different topics, some of which included: (1) how to think through hiring and retaining talent, (2) the characteristics of world-class leaders and (3) the need for organizational transparency and laser-pointed focus at the highest levels. One of my favorite parts of the conversation was our “lightning round” at the end, where Keith gave his thoughts on which of today’s largest tech companies will be least influential in the future, whether or not Silicon Valley remains the world’s innovation hub going forward, and the best pieces of advice he ever got from Peter Thiel, Elon Musk, Reid Hoffman, Vinod Khosla and Jack Dorsey.