Wang: First-time founders should join a startup before starting their own
Alex Wang · 20VC: Scale Founder Alex Wang on How To Hire Incredible Talent Before You Are A Hot Company, Why Beating Competition Is Not As Clear Cut As Investors Believe & Why AI Is Under-Hyped Today In Terms of Total Impact · Sep 6, 2019 · at 5:28
Alexandr Wang, founder and CEO of Scale AI, offers career advice on whether young professionals should join incumbents, startups, or found companies immediately.
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“I think the thing that I would do first is join a small startup. And the reason for that is a couple things. I think first, your first couple jobs really imprint you and like imprint how you think about jobs and how you think about business and how you think about the work that you're doing, etc. So you really want to be somewhere where you're in a strong environment that will sort of teach you good habits and teach you a good culture. And so for like your first thing out of the gate, it's really good to spend that in that Kind of environment, which generally lends itself to a small startup. The reason I wouldn't start a company straight out of the gate is that I do think if you've kind of seen an organization run once before and have sort of like learned from that experience, you're going to be a lot more effective when starting your own company, especially as you have to hire a lot of people and grow.”
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