• The most important thing for young generations is to find a good mentor and choose your boos and the person you work. Don’t try to choose your company because even we’re right 40% of the time.
  • I think the most important thing is to find a good mentor and choose your boss, the person you work for. Don't try to choose your company. That's too hard. It's hard for us. We've been doing this for 30 years, trying to figure out which startups are going to succeed and fail. And even when we're really good at it, maybe we're right 40% of the time. The idea that someone right out of school is going to be great at picking the company is crazy. So what I would select is the place and the person you can learn the most from. And if that's a solvable thing, it's reasonable to expect that you can project: How much can I learn? How fast can I learn? And if you're wrong, make a change. But the faster you learn, growth compounds.
• Pick smart talented people so they want to take you with them as they navigate to successful interesting opportunities.
  • And by the way, if you pick smart, talented people, they're going to take you with them. So as they navigate to successful, interesting opportunities, the first thing they're going to do is call you up and say, "Please come with me." I've done this every time I've considered changing jobs in 20 years of technology. Before I've ever committed to changing jobs, I've texted or called or met with some of the smartest, nicest people that I've worked with and said, "Would you come with me? Do X, Y, and Z?" And watching how they react to the opportunity helps filter the opportunities I've said yes and no to. I'm always paying attention to who are the smartest people I work with that have talent, and I want them to come with me.
• Figure out what you’re excellent at. You have to try different tasks and roles to figure it out but when you can articulate what you’re best at and clarify your value proposition, you can find opportunities that map your value proposition.
  • The second thing is to figure out something you're excellent at. You may not know right away. You have to try different tasks and then roles. But figure out what you can be extraordinary at. Most people who do well figure that out at some point. You can articulate it, and they can compare themselves to other talented, smart people who work hard and say, "On this dimension, though, I'm the single best." And then you have a value proposition, like a product has a value proposition. And the more you clarify that value proposition, the easier it is to find opportunities that map to that value proposition. And then eventually you find the startups that need that value proposition to succeed, where that critical skill is one of the three or four key risks for that business. And then everybody loves you.