Silicon Valley

“I think that some of the absolute sort of like gems, if you will, in Silicon Valley and tech are the teammates that are willing to stay around for four or five, six, seven years, right? And they have institutional knowledge that nobody has. They have a positiv…”

“And then many of them are just pure digital product companies. And so I think this is a thing that a lot of the big ride share and food delivery conglomerates are figuring out. They're like, oh, this is a lot harder than we thought. Like when you're dealing wi…”

“This sort of, I do believe there's sort of this fundamental attribution bias at play. Where people in these high-performings don't acknowledge the amount that luck and inertia has been a part of what they're doing. And that the people in the big companies or t…”

“To apply to AC, you don't need to know any of us. You don't need to reach out to us. It doesn't make Any specific difference? The principles of YC is that you should be able to get, become an insider in YC in Silicon Valley without knowing anybody. And that's …”

“Companies who want to compete against world-class competitors outside of, you know, these technology centers like Silicon Valley need to be, become good at remote work Really fast. Because getting that talent probably means having offices that are, or individu…”

“So I gave myself this rule where I had to go out once a week for a couple months, go to an external event, and I would count out 10 business cards. And the rule was I had to hand out all 10 of those business cards by introducing myself to people that were new …”

“It turns out that in a career context, it's so unsafe for your manager to turn to a young woman on the team and say, here, let me give you feedback on your physical appearance and how it affects your competence and how you're perceived in the workforce, that t…”

“We work with these, you know, 20 some year old CEOs here in the Valley and they tend to show up and act like they know better, you know, than someone who's been doing this for so, so long.”

“Believe it or not, if you got, if you went to a fancy law firm and they filed for you the standard articles of incorporation that are used in Silicon Valley, most governance experts upon reading those documents would say you have a fiduciary duty to say yes.”

“I think designers in the Valley are very, very frustrated with the product development process, not to say the product managers, but they're extremely frustrated. And I think a lot of designers feel like they're compromising many designers.”

“Silicon Valley often treats design as a service organization. You know, like design is catching things before it go out the door. It's not actually typically part of the development process.”

“What's interesting is that Silicon Valley has found a way to make the most profitable style of business the least profitable. Like, software has, there's like, No physical costs. It should, the margin should be close to 80 or 90%, and it turns out that they're…”

“You know, like, everybody references Silicon Valley, but Mythic Quest gets at some of, I was in gaming once gets at some of my experiences in the technology organizations, got a technical female lead, and I think it's quite funny.”

“They're going to follow you for a while because you've got a really great idea, and the minute they've got another choice, man, they are out of there.”

“Everyone. I mean, everyone. And you know, I work with some of the most senior people in Silicon Valley. I'm talking about CEOs of public companies. I'm talking about chief product officers, VPs of product at great brands, everyone, no matter who they are, Lenn…”

“Users flock to simple products. We love simple products, both as enterprise customers and as individuals. Those users, you know, all sort of inundated products, and what does the product do? It takes those users for granted by saying, oh my goodness, now we ne…”

“Like in Silicon Valley, it is usually folks are kind of at a job for, you know, to start for a kind of year or two, they kind of go to another, you know what I mean? And the problem with the turnover like that is that you can't, Take like really long bets like…”

“I think we can also be honest that it will be harder. It is easier to Recruit and build a team where you're in a place where the high density is all over. Another thing that happens to us is that many people try to recruit from us, and that's something that we…”

“I think people are actually just getting used to this technology in, like, a really interesting way where I find, and this is why the product needs to evolve too, that this idea of delegating to an AI, it's not natural to most people. It's not like you're goin…”

“When we started HAI, I realized that Silicon Valley did not talk to Washington, DC and, or Brussels or other parts of the world.”

“Silicon Valley loves to score on Wall Street for focusing on money. But honestly, most of the Silicon Valley is chasing the same thing.”

“We talk in Silicon Valley about never quit, but that is complete absolute venture capital bullshit. The incentive of venture capitalist is to put money into your company and milk you dry. They never get their money back. There is no way for them to take that i…”

“Silicon Valley in 2025 is, is Florence in the Renaissance. It's crazy. Like the amount of creativity and insane invention and progress that's happening for our species right now in this place is absolutely unparalleled in all human history.”

“If you want to accomplish something truly extraordinary, if you want to be in the 99th percentile in terms of outcomes, it's gonna be really difficult. Like, it's gonna be really uncomfortable, and you gotta sort of remind people of that, that if they ever fin…”

“There's this meme going around that you know, Silicon Valley people don't let their kids use computers. And I just, I, there may be a handful of people who are like that. I don't, you know, I don't know. I think it's more honestly the other way around, which i…”

“And so I'm just extremely bullish on this general category of, like, And I think it's underrated because it's so different from what we think about in Silicon Valley, people tend to not think about it. But how can we apply AI and some of the tools and framewor…”

“Steve Jobs and Jerry Garcia are, like, very similar in my mind. Real crass people. So I think of them as a great Silicon Valley success story.”

“It's only a, 16 Z and a couple of other folks, John door who really kind of created the, Hey, I'm going to be the individual investor and I'm going to propagate a certain set of ideas and that's going It creates gravity within Silicon Valley and influence foun…”

“When you're in the, you know, the, you know, the back alley of that organization, the bowels of those organizations, you learn how bad it is to be an employee, like the bureaucracy above you leadership doesn't know what's going on the industry, the, you know, …”

“It's so funny to say that, but like when younger people in Silicon Valley right now, I think that Silicon Valley is uncharacteristically full of people who don't actually love computers.”