The Ledger
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Sternberg: 80% of VCs detract value from board meetings
“I, more than anything, because I kind of have this theory, I think about 80% of VCs, frankly, detract from the value of the kind of board in the discussion. I think 10% are neutral, and I think 10% are really positive.”
Sternberg: Firing poor-fit employees quickly benefits the employee long-term
“If someone's not a good fit for a company, then it's actually bad for them too, right? And so if you figure that out really quickly You can point that out to them before having joined the company, even if it becomes a thing on their resume and they are better …”
Sternberg: Building a startup to flip leads to destructive short-term decisions
“If you're building to flip, you'll make short-term decisions, and that will come back to bite you.”
Sternberg: Mission-first startups force distinct operational and hiring choices
“When you start with a mission first, you make a lot of different choices, and you also end up with a very different kind of team”
Sternberg: Sales and marketing require distinct people, not combined roles
“I always wanted these kind of what I now call unicorn people to fulfill a unicorn role. Like, why do you need to pay for both a salesperson and a marketing person? Can't they just be one person? And second time around, you recognize that they're actually reall…”
Sternberg: Honor hires small, highly selective engineering teams of 10x talent
“We are building the tech teams in really similar ways, so there are a few different philosophies on how to build a tech team, but what we do is extraordinarily selective, but low numbers of engineers, so it's really hard to find engineers that we want to work …”
Sternberg: Great VCs offer strategic advice without trying to run companies
“They really understand that the company is run by the founders, and they understand the limits of their knowledge on what's going on on the inside, kind of tactically, and so they're really, like, the truly great VCs are really good at giving strategic advice,…”
Sternberg: Personality, vision, and tactical alignment are core investor selection criteria
“It's like, do we like each other? Do we agree on the vision? And do we agree on the tactics at a high level? And then from there, it's a lot of nice to have. But I think those three are the core.”
Sternberg: Split board votes signal poor governance
“If something actually comes to like a split vote in the board, or the board has to go through a formal process to make a decision that kind of everybody didn't already kind of agree on, that's probably a pretty bad sign.”
Sternberg: Retaining top executive talent requires true empowerment, not micromanagement
“Clearly both Larry and Sergey and then Mark did a good job of truly empowering really, really smart people, because you cannot keep really smart people if you kind of just tell them what to do.”
Sternberg: Honor will launch transformative home care products within five years
“Also within five years, for sure, we'll have introduced kind of new products and services into the homes that really changed the face of what home care is considered to be today, but will make it so much better for the kids and their parents.”