Gil: The happiest elite founders evolve from mercenaries into craft artists
Elad Gil · Elad Gil: How to Spot a Billion-Dollar Startup Before the Rest of the World · May 13, 2025 · at 1:07:15
Investor Elad Gil reflects on Naval Ravikant's framework regarding the evolving utility functions and motivations of startup founders over a lifetime.
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“The people that I see who do the most interesting big things over time fall into that latter category where always there was some mercenary piece. Of course you want to have money to survive and all this stuff, and then that morphs into your, you become more mission-centric, and then over time you just do it for the love of whatever the thing you're doing is, and those are the people that I see that become happy over time.”
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