Jan 2, 2019 · 32m · a16z
a16z Podcast | On Mentors and Mentees
Ken Coleman · 13m spoken Ben Horowitz · 9m spoken Michel Feaster · 4m spoken Sonal Chokshi · 54s spoken
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gold bands on the timeline = statements, start to end. Hover to read, click to jump. CC turns on captions
In this live episode of the a16z podcast, venture capitalist Ben Horowitz and tech executive Ken Coleman discuss the transformative power of mentorship, organic networking, diversity, and executive leadership, moderated by UserMind co-founder Michelle Feaster.
How this conversation actually went
Every chapter scored 0–10 on four independent dynamics. Hover any point for the reasoning behind the score. The host holds 3.1% of the talking time here. How this is scored →
The host as informed peer 2.9 Guest teaching 2.0 Guest disagreement 0.8 The host pushing back 0.4
speaking balance: gold is the host, purple is the guest (3 minute bins)
Sharpest disagreement ▶ 31:35 Ken on walking away from stubborn mentees
Ken forcefully rejects the dynamic of wasting time on mentees who know it all and refuse to listen, describing how he bluntly ends relationships when there is no value proposition.
Hardest push from the host ▶ 11:00 Michel reframing mentorship around emotional state managementMichel intervenes in the conversation to reframe CEO coaching, shifting the discussion from generic leadership advice to the precise psychological tactic of using targeted questions to snap mentees out of emotional states.
Biggest teaching moment ▶ 21:40 Ken's elephant and giraffes inclusion parableKen educates both the panel and audience on the failure of corporate D&I efforts by using a memorable story about giraffes asking elephants to grow longer necks or lose weight rather than modifying the building.
The host holds their own ▶ 29:00 Michel on entrepreneurship as a vehicle for social changeMichel demonstrates her operational leadership authority by articulating how founding her own company served as a direct solution to workplace culture barriers.
the scores for every segment, with the reasoning behind each
| Chapter | Topic | The host as informed peer | Guest teaching | Guest disagreement | The host pushing back | Why |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| How Ben Horowitz and Ken Coleman Met | 2 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Michel moderates warmly, asking how Ben and Ken met and prompting Ken on why he followed up. Ken explains evaluating talent beyond resumes, and Michel validates this with her own experience on how great mentors see potential. | |
| Evolving Mentorship & Finding the Side Door | 2 | 2 | 1 | 0 | Ben describes working extra hard at SGI so as not to embarrass Ken, which Michel relates to. Ken explains the concept of 'intelligent override' and finding the side door when company hiring processes fail. | |
| Unexpected Mentors: Howard Smith and Andy Grove | 1 | 2 | 0 | 0 | Michel asks both guests about unexpected mentors in their lives. Ken discusses learning engineering management from Howard Smith, while Ben shares his story of studying Andy Grove and later being asked by Grove to write the forward to High Output Management. | |
| Mentoring Founders and Transitioning to CEO | 4 | 2 | 0 | 1 | Ken and Ben discuss how CEO roles change as companies scale and how mentors must ask questions rather than dictate. Michel contributes expert commentary on how Ben mentored her by asking targeted questions to break through emotional states during tough decisions. | |
| Cultivating Mentorship & Networking Organically | 3 | 1 | 0 | 0 | The panel explores how to cultivate mentorship organically without being a pest. Ben references Jeezy's Rap Genius breakdown to illustrate that mentorship relies on authentic, two-way human connections rather than transactional networking. | |
| Lessons Learned from Mentees | 3 | 3 | 2 | 1 | Michel pivots the discussion to diversity and inclusion in Silicon Valley. Ken shares his experience as an early Black executive, emphasizing perseverance over making excuses, and uses his 'giraffes and elephants' parable to illustrate how companies force minority hires to assimilate rather than modifying systems. | |
| Managing Cultural Differences & Entrepreneurship as Social Change | 5 | 2 | 1 | 1 | Ken argues that tech leaders tackle hard engineering problems every day, so complaining that diversity is 'too hard' is unacceptable. Michel demonstrates strong expertise by connecting this to entrepreneurship as a vehicle for social change, revealing how Ben challenged her to start UserMind to create her own culture. | |
| Audience Q&A: Approaching Senior Executives & Ending Mentor Relationships | 3 | 2 | 2 | 0 | During audience Q&A, Michel and Ben advise junior employees on approaching senior executives for lunch rather than asking for immediate commitment. When asked about failed mentorships, Ken and Ben bluntly state they disengage when mentees refuse to listen or lie. |
Statements from this episode (20)
Ken Coleman: Over-reliance on resumes misses true drivers of success
“Well, I think there's an over reliance on resumes and experience, and people miss what's really important in success, which is skills, abilities, and personal attributes.”
Coleman: Junior managers demand unrealistic experience in hiring specs
“I find it fascinating that a manager who's five years out of school is recruiting somebody and puts a spec together for 15 years of experience.”
Coleman: Most companies lack employees who exercise 'intelligent override'
“Companies put together systems and processes, and unfortunately, about 10, sometimes up to 20% of the time, that process makes no sense. It's just not helpful. And so what you want to do in a company is people who can do what I call intelligent override. The p…”
Ben Horowitz: Finding 'side doors' to VCs is an essential founder skill
“Venture capital works very much like that in that you hear people complain a lot, well, I don't know any VCs, so I can't get my company funded. Well, if you're going to be an entrepreneur and build a company, you know, Scrape and get customers and figure out h…”
Coleman: Peers can serve as effective professional mentors
“And my point there, you can have a peer as a mentor, because we were peers. I didn't work for him, he didn't work for me.”
Horowitz: High Output Management is the best business book
“Very early in my career, I read a book called High Output Management by Andy Grove, and I, you know, I thought it was the best book I'd read in business.”
Ken Coleman: The CEO role changes more than any other as companies scale
“There's a difference when there are five of you, or eight of you, or 10 of you, when there's 500 of you, or thousand of you, and the person's job who changes the most in a growing environment is the CEO's job.”
Ken Coleman: CEOs stop knowing every employee once team size exceeds 125
“Because when you're up to about a 125 people, you, the CEO, You're the leader of the company. You can know everybody. When you got 500 people, everybody knows you, and you know a very small part of the company.”
Horowitz: Generic leadership advice does not work for founder-CEOs
“There's no real generic advice that works. You can't say it, you know, it's for that person in that situation based on what they're feeling, and so much of that job is so emotional, and so much of when they screw it up, they're so afraid of the dark place that…”
Coleman: High-growth leaders act on feedback within one week
“The people that can grow the most are people when you have a conversation today, and you talk to them a week from the day, and they've done something with the conversation.”
Ken Coleman: Mentorship must develop organically through trust and honesty
“So I believe you should be about getting to know more and more people, and the mentorship happens organically as you get to know people, because you can't make somebody be a mentor, and for it to work, That relationship, there has to be trust, and you gotta be…”
Horowitz: Mentorship must be bidirectional and non-transactional
“Look, it's a relationship, and it's got to be a relationship where there's value going in both directions, where, you know, you're actually interested in that person, not in what you can get out of them.”
Coleman: Ending meetings asking 'what can I do for you?' is powerful
“Every time you meet with this guy, he always ends with, what can I do for you? It's fast, it's disarming, and you feel, wow, he cares. He cares about how he can help me. I just find that a very powerful way to end the conversation.”
Coleman: Corporate diversity efforts fail when D&I officers lack actual authority
“I'm finding that a number of D&I people have the job but no power, no influence, and trying to do diversity is hard, like anything else. You have to have goals and objectives like anything else that's important, and you have to have people who have the ability…”
Coleman: Tech hiring managers prioritize risk minimization over maximizing opportunity
“In technology that the average hiring manager is not trying to maximize the opportunity to try and minimize risk.”
Horowitz: Hiring for strengths rather than lack of weakness builds great teams
“You hire for the strength, not the lack of weakness. And very few people do that, but it's a huge advantage if you can, because that's how you get greatness. You never get greatness if you look for, like, does the person not have any holes?”
Ken Coleman: Addressing diversity issues creates stronger companies and leaders
“So if you push on the diversity issues, it'll make you a better company or a better leader.”
Ken Coleman: Difficulty is a terrible excuse for avoiding corporate goals
“So, hard is a terrible reason not to do anything, because we live in this world where we choose to do hard every day.”