Pfeffer: Jason Calacanis defies standard VC models with solo, high-volume bets
Jeffrey Pfeffer · The paths to power: How to grow your influence and advance your career | Jeffrey Pfeffer (Stanford) · Jun 13, 2024 · at 29:34
Stanford GSB professor Jeffrey Pfeffer discusses angel investor Jason Calacanis as a prime case study of someone who achieved power and wealth by breaking industry norms.
0:00 / 0:18exact quote · 18.7s
▶ Watch the full episode on YouTube → 720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“There is a conventional wisdom in the venture capital industry which he defies almost completely. You know, he makes a lot of little bets, not a few big bets. He is he runs a very lean operation. He doesn't have a lot of partners. He doesn't have actually any partners, so he can't be fired by his partners.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Jeffrey Pfeffer
Pfeffer: Bill Gates stole the original code that built Microsoft
“People forget that Bill Gates stole the code on which Microsoft has built.”
Pfeffer: Attaining power is a self-fulfilling dynamic that erases past transgressions
“Life is not homeostatic at all. That life is actually self-fulfillment. If I believe you're powerful, you will become more powerful. If I believe you have no power, you will wind up with almost no power. And that therefore, it is all forgotten and forgiven.”
Pfeffer: Underrepresented groups will not succeed without power skills
“These are folks who will not succeed unless they learn power skills because the world is stacked against them in lots of ways.”
Pfeffer: Regis McKenna transformed Steve Jobs from an incompetent presenter
“When Steve Jobs began, Steve Jobs couldn't convince you to buy water if you were dying of thirst. He could not give a presentation to save his life. And Regis McKenna and his team took Steve Jobs under their wing and created Steve Jobs, a man who could sell an…”
Pfeffer: Professionals can possess institutional power or personal autonomy, never both
“You can have power or you can have autonomy, but you cannot have both.”
Pfeffer: Trump only faced intense scrutiny after becoming president
“Donald Trump has done for 40 years what he's now being accused of doing. You know, the tax stuff, all this stuff. He's been a grifter all his life. But when you become president, people are going to look at things that in the past they would not have looked at…”