The NFX Podcast

null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by Elizabeth Yin, Co-Founder & General Partner at Hustle Fund. Read the full article here: https://elizabethyin.com/2019/05/17/15-annoying-things-that-vcs-say-or-ask-and-how-to-think-about-them/

null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Sep 9, 2019 by Scott Belsky, Founder of Behance. Read the full article on Medium here: https://marker.medium.com/creativity-is-the-new-productivity-d287d6ad7533

null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published on Mar 15, 2018 by Sean Ellis, Founder & CEO of GrowthHackers. Read the full article here: seanellis.me

null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. Google is not a conventional company. We do not intend to become one. It’s been more than 10 years since Google Founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin wrote a long and personal “owner’s manual” for shareholders detailing their hopes and worries about taking Google public in 2004, and sharing the company’s ethos. Read the full memo here - https://abc.xyz/investor/founders-letters/2004-ipo-letter/

null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. In October 2006, Yahoo Senior Vice President Brad Garlinghouse wrote an internal memo, urging the company to narrow its focus and clarify its vision. The memo, now famously called the "Peanut Butter Manifesto," pointed out Yahoo's lack of focus, using peanut butter as a metaphor for spreading its resources too thinly. Read the full memo here - https://sriramk.com/memos/garlinghouse-peanut-butter.pdf

null This is The Founders' List - audio versions of essays from technology’s most important leaders, selected by the founder community. This essay was written and published by James Currier, General Partner at NFX. Read the full article here: https://www.nfx.com/post/building-strong-companies-the-no-politics-rule/

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null At NFX, we dig into network effects companies and their founding stories, so we emailed Craig Newmark, the founder of Craigslist. Craigslist is the purest example of a 2-sided network effect and has remained stronger than ever for the past 20+ years. NFX partner James Currier had a chance to sit down with Craig to talk and catch up. Craig handed over the operations of Craigslist in 2000 and is now more focused on his philanthropy, but when we catch up, we get to discuss his mental models for business and for life. Just like the product he built, his secret to success is simple - treat others the way you want to be treated and put service above all else.

null Speed is often the secret weapon, especially when adjusting to and tackling a crisis. Credited with launching the Lean Startup movement, eight-time entrepreneur-turned-educator Steve Blank joins NFX partner James Currier and shares counterintuitive advice for how startups should be thinking right now. Steve says "don't waste a good crisis" and discusses how to find opportunity in disruption. He's changed how startups are built, how entrepreneurship is taught, how science is commercialized, and how companies and the government innovate. Startups specifically need to speed up and put the pedal to the metal. It’s tough love time - if anyone at your organization is still operating under the old normal, consider one of the two P’s - pivot or part ways! Listen to how Steve breaks down how Founders can navigate an extended crisis and why now is the time to innovate. Read more at - www.nfx.com

null As a Founder, having a strong sense of direction, purpose, and context for what you are doing every day gives you an advantage. Finding the deeper meaning gives you speed and power. Your work matters. But to see how it does clearly requires us to step outside of the caves of our day-to-day lives of running startups to understand how we all got here, and where we're going. There is a rich history you are building upon, and your work - whether a corner or floor of the cathedral - is a foundation that others will build on as we collectively build the future. Dyson is an exceptional mind. His perspective brings light to our greater purpose in building new technology. Read the full essay here - https://www.nfx.com/post/why-your-work-matters/