The Exchanges

Q think was the most prominent advice from a mentor or a friend along the process? So like for me, mine was once my website crashed, and a friend of mine, when I was crying on the floor, he told me that nothing's ever as good or as bad as it seems. Do you have any that stick out to you like that, which you always hold quite true to you?

A So some of the advice I've gotten that I've been following, even though it makes me a little uncomfortable, which is why I mention it, is I hear often there are some non-negotiable Things that are just co-founder decisions, and you shouldn't discuss them as a group. It filters through the company by following your vision, your intent for the business, and that's not something that should be up for group discussion, and you just kind of have to impose it on others, and that's something that makes me a little uncomfortable because in our corporate culture here at Acadium, we tend to be extremely deliberative and data-driven and And I don't think by virtue of being the co-founder, I am most likely to be correct about a wide range of topics. And I really enjoy the process of drawing on expertise and data to come to better decisions. And so part of what was most useful in at least thinking about the degrees of things that you need to have as global decisions for the company are what are the ones that are not up for debate that no matter who is coming through the company and how things are changing, you're not going to alter the course. Because that's the identity of the company. So while the culture changes over time based on people who you bring in, and you can kind of nudge it in different directions depending on what you choose to reward and punish, the kind of ethereal notion of…

AI assessment note: “there are some non-negotiable Things that are just co-founder decisions”

Q point. Uh, but I do want to, obviously, co-founder of Cadium, and a lot of co-founders have never actually been managers before, so I'm really intrigued as to hear from your experiences of what are some of the hardest things that you've had to learn to be as a manager in the transition to being the brilliant founder that you are today of Cadium, and how did you learn them?

A So, I'm sure You hear all the time from people, uh, who come on the show and who you talk to that it's very, very difficult to understand the job of being the co-founder CEO of a startup. And I mean, this is a trite at this point, right? It's in the Ben Horowitz book, uh, all over the place. It is repeatedly hammered into you before you try to do a startup, how hard it is. It is as hard as everybody says, and you cannot actually understand it until you're in the job. It is impossible to empathize In my opinion, until you're doing it, you can try, but really to have weight on your shoulders of giving absolutely brilliant people this very, very high risk choice and convincing them to follow your path is one of the most stressful things that you can do. So basically the people who work at KDM, we're about 40, are extremely technically skilled, uh, mostly out of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, that kind of background, along with multiple PhDs, people who worked at government agencies as well, and Convincing them to give up on everything else they could possibly be doing in the world, including extremely lucrative income from big internet companies to come here and roll the dice was very, very, very challenging. And we have done it, but it puts a kind of load on top of you where, oh my God, this company has to be successful, or I just threw all of this human ability into the garbage for yea…

AI assessment note: “not actually the management component quite yet to your question, but it's the leadership component”

Q point. Uh, but I do want to, obviously, co-founder of Cadium, and a lot of co-founders have never actually been managers before, so I'm really intrigued as to hear from your experiences of what are some of the hardest things that you've had to learn to be as a manager in the transition to being the brilliant founder that you are today of Cadium, and how did you learn them?

A So, I'm sure You hear all the time from people, uh, who come on the show and who you talk to that it's very, very difficult to understand the job of being the co-founder CEO of a startup. And I mean, this is a trite at this point, right? It's in the Ben Horowitz book, uh, all over the place. It is repeatedly hammered into you before you try to do a startup, how hard it is. It is as hard as everybody says, and you cannot actually understand it until you're in the job. It is impossible to empathize In my opinion, until you're doing it, you can try, but really to have weight on your shoulders of giving absolutely brilliant people this very, very high risk choice and convincing them to follow your path is one of the most stressful things that you can do. So basically the people who work at KDM, we're about 40, are extremely technically skilled, uh, mostly out of MIT, Stanford, Caltech, that kind of background, along with multiple PhDs, people who worked at government agencies as well, and Convincing them to give up on everything else they could possibly be doing in the world, including extremely lucrative income from big internet companies to come here and roll the dice was very, very, very challenging. And we have done it, but it puts a kind of load on top of you where, oh my God, this company has to be successful, or I just threw all of this human ability into the garbage for yea…

AI assessment note: “not actually the management component quite yet to your question”