Daniel Kan
person on 5 shows · 7 statements across 1 episodes · said 12 times in 8 episodes since 2016
20VC 7 
TBPN 2 
Mixergy 1 
How I Built This 1 
the a16z Podcast 1
On the record as a speaker too: Daniel Kan across every show, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
Mentions by year, every show
tap a year for its mentions
20VC 7TBPN 2the a16z Podcast 1How I Built This 1Mixergy 1
2025 1 mention in 1 episode
2024 2 mentions in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
2019 6 mentions in 3 episodes 2 per episode
- 20VC: Reddit CEO Steve Huffman on Scaling Teams; What Works and What Does Not, A CEO's Relationship with Stress and Managing It & How To Structure Internal Decision-Making Effectively
- 20VC: True Ventures' Puneet Agarwal on Why EQ Is Going To Separate The Best Firms In Venture Over The Next Decade, The Negatives of Attribution in Venture & What Makes A Truly Efficient Venture Partnership
- 10+1 Lessons from Serial Entrepreneur Justin Kan
- every mention in 2019, scene by scene →
2016 2 mentions in 2 episodes 1 per episode
every mention on every show, scene by scene, with the transcript →
7 statements about Daniel Kan, every show
Kan: Graduated in 2009 with only two job offers out of 30
“I applied to like 30 banking jobs, but it was in 2009, and so I didn't get any jobs. I got, I think, two jobs. One was at a startup in San Francisco, and the other was to teach English in Korea.”
Kan: The initial idea for Cruise came entirely from co-founder Kyle Vogt
“When it comes to Cruise, this was all my co-founder Kyle's idea. He's a CTO now, and I was wrapping up my last startup, and it seemed like a great idea, or at the very least, a really interesting story, and it turns out it was.”
Kan: Micromanagement stems from leadership failing to set clear expectations
“Micromanagement is really a sign that you have not necessarily set clear expectations, or potentially that they don't necessarily know how to do the work, but you can offer guidance, but if you tell them exactly what to do, in a lot of cases, they'll just be p…”
Kan: Hiring executives who have already done the job limits their growth
“If you hire someone who's already done the job, then they're not necessarily growing in the role. You're not fulfilling their personal goals of like learning or, you know, becoming a better manager or otherwise.”
Kan: Hiring someone to solve unknown problems is wishful thinking
“Hiring people to solve a problem that you don't know how to solve yourself is a little bit of a red herring. I think it is wishful thinking that you will be able to find the right person if you don't know what you're looking for.”
Kan: Exec prematurely hired growth leaders before understanding its own strategy
“So we did this a lot early at exec. We tried to hire someone who knew more about growth and customer acquisition, which ultimately we needed, but we should have spent more time, in my opinion, learning what we needed, figuring out how to make it work, then fin…”
Kan: Asking candidates to summarize their experience tests their communication skills
“I always ask people to summarize their work experience. I obviously have their resume in front of me, but what they highlight, how much detail they go into reveals a lot about the type of Person they are, and if they are good at clear communication, and that's…”