The Ledger
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Paul English omits distracting board member suggestions from official meeting minutes
“I don't write down everything the board says, and maybe this is bad. I write down the things that are the most significant or things that I'm going to take action on. But if it's something someone mentioned about some side project that I think is Defocused, ev…”
Paul English argues interpersonal charisma and recruiting skills are fully trainable
“And a lot of these skills you can do in personal life transfer directly into business life. So I think it's absolutely trainable.”
Arrogant founders fail by hiring subservient employees who avoid challenging them
“Well, I think either the tech founder lacks humility, and they're arrogant, and they only hire people that would be subservient to them, so they don't hire people that are daring enough, and they're going to challenge them and push them.”
Philanthropists should fund non-profit leaders upfront without imposing bureaucratic reporting hurdles
“Find the leader that inspires you. Write them checks first, and ask the question second. And I know from being in the boards and helping start some non-profits, a lot of donors make the non-profit leader, like, jump through hoops, do so much work in reporting.…”
Paul English: Music arrangement requires coordination similar to software programming
“The coordination part of music arrangement, to me, feels similar to a lot of the coordination parts of programming, so I felt very comfortable in both areas.”
Tech startup creativity requires problem empathy and relentless iteration
“In tech entrepreneurship, I think most creativity comes out of people who are empaths for problems, and when you see something that irritates you, rather than just say that's irritating and move on, you kind of focus on it, and you try to think about other peo…”
Paul English validates startup ideas by pitching collaborators before writing code
“What I like to do to validate the idea is I write up a SPAC or a design, and then I pitch it, and I might be pitching it to a family member, a friend, a colleague, and it's only when I get one person excited do I say, okay, maybe there's something here, and th…”
Kayak raised $200M at an $800M valuation with only 39 employees
“So we had to raise like two hundred million dollars. I remember we had 39 employees. They had 130 employees. But we were able to raise an eight hundred million dollar valuation, which was crazy given that we're only 39 employees.”
Paul English argues customers do not care about venture funding announcements
“Your customers don't care who invested in you. And for the most part, your customers don't even care if you're a private company or a public company. I think these milestones are more internal ones. They're not ones important to the customers. So I would encou…”
Paul English rejects email deferral features because they force redundant reviews
“So I really don't like email applications that allow you to defer an email to look at later because that means you've looked at it twice.”
Kayak co-founder Paul English discusses his experience with bipolar disorder
“So I'm bipolar, and one time early in my career, I was a young VP running a big team.”
Paul English advocates for radical transparency with co-founders during startup crises
“I believe in radical transparency. So if something goes really bad at my company, I'll reach out to my co-founder first and maybe to my management team out of my board and just say, I just really screwed something up, you know, help me think this through. So w…”