founders
also referred to as: founder · the founder
22 statements across 22 episodes · 6 bullish · 6 bearish · 11 people on the record · first statement Mar 12, 2020 by Shaan Puri · said 10 times in 4 episodes since 2022 · across every show →
Mentions by year
brought up most by Sam Parr (5), Eric Glyman (1), David Senra (1), Andrew Wilkinson (1)
tap a year for its mentions
2025 8 mentions in 2 episodes 4 per episode
2024 1 mention in 1 episode
2022 1 mention in 1 episode
Everything said about founders, oldest first
Mar 12, 2020 negative
Apr 5, 2021 positive
Aug 12, 2021 negative
Puri: Founders should go all-in rather than build companies as side hustles
“I think in general, it's better not to take hybrid approaches because hybrid approaches are typically like kind of compromises or have your cake and eat it twos that you're trying to get... I don't think you can do it with company building... For the company b…”
Apr 23, 2022
Puri: Evaluate veteran founders' reasons rather than accepting their warnings
“When a founder goes into a space, they can tell you a lot of things about it, but they have so much scar tissue about that space that they will always tell you, like, nine times out of 10, I should say. Nine times out of 10, they're gonna tell you don't do it …”
Jul 12, 2022
Dharmesh Shah: Early-stage recruiting requires non-monetary upside or undervalued talent.
“And so, you know, one of the things a founder has to kind of get good at, it's convincing really smart people to do this irrational thing, which is join you in your startup, right? And if you can't do that, if you can't make that sale, which is the most import…”
Oct 18, 2022 neutral
Jan 26, 2023
Founders must shift to managers by 50 employees or risk business damage
“The percent of time in which you think of yourself as an individual contributor versus a manager has to shift very dramatically. I think probably around the size of. 50 people, it has to shift like that. Like it was about 500 people, but. That's probably one o…”
Sep 4, 2023 positive
Shaan Puri: 90% of persistent founders succeed over a 15-year arc
“It worked, in the end it worked, right, the 15 year arc, You get like a, then the odds flip from like, 90% of new businesses fail to actually like, 90% of you guys will succeed if you actually enjoy this enough, where you'll keep doing this even though you hav…”
Dec 22, 2023 negative
Consistency bias causes founders to irrationally stick with mediocre businesses
“Most of the time, if something's working, you're making a little bit of money and you've been telling everyone for a year, you just feel like you need to stay consistent with it. And that would have been a terrible decision for us.”
Apr 17, 2024 negative
Giffon: High Liquidation Preferences Can Render $10M ARR Startups Completely Worthless
“You can have a business that's doing ten million dollars a year of revenue and growing 30% a year, but maybe it raised 40 or fifty million dollars. And such that like The founder is probably not going to make any money because the pref stack is so high. And th…”
Jun 13, 2024
Jun 21, 2024 neutral
Puri: Extreme founder willpower is uncomfortable for employees
“When you have force of will, it is as brute forcey as it sounds. It is uncomfortable to be around. Sometimes you are pushing people. Maybe you're holding a higher standard. Maybe you're demanding that things are done a certain way or done at a certain speed th…”
Jun 28, 2024 neutral
Aug 12, 2024 positive
Puri: Early believers matter far more to young founders than money or advice
“So I think everybody needs somebody in their career, usually in your early twenties, that believes in you more than you believe in yourself at the time. They just have an irrational belief. You're a penny stock. But they see you as a blue chip and they want to…”
Nov 11, 2024 negative
Petersen: Tech media unfairly targets startup founders instead of incumbent mega-corporations
“All reporters play a very important function of like holding the powerful accountable, but like founders, you're not that power, but we're kind of suffering through like, you know, we're up against some very powerful forces in the world. Like we feel like we'r…”
Nov 26, 2024 positive
Rydhan: Emerging tech's primary strategy is surviving until the market scales
“In these emerging tech things, so everything at Founders that we do is emerging tech, I think the theme of all of them is survive. If you make it to when the industry happens, you will grow with it. If you were a small percentage of the industry and the indust…”
Apr 7, 2025 positive
Apr 15, 2025 positive
Currier: Speed is the single biggest determinant of founder success
“So the number one thing that it rolls up into is speed. So you could lay out 16 characteristics that you're looking for, but all of those lead to one thing, which is speed. And so if we measure speed when we're meeting with the founders, that's the main thing …”
Aug 20, 2025 negative
Founders often lose control of their time and abandon their core strengths.
“I also think too, during your week, like I think, especially with other founders is life goes on. You were probably really good at something. And you did it a lot and that's what allowed you to build this company. Then suddenly you're running the company and y…”
Oct 28, 2025 neutral
Puri: Industry expertise traps veteran founders with emotional scar tissue
“The first is, if you've been in a space for a number of years, and you met all the right people, you learned all the hard lessons, you know the nuances of that space, you're the most equipped to do it, but you also have the most scar tissue. And so some people…”
Nov 19, 2025 neutral
Parr: Applying for jobs after a failed startup is common but mortifying
“For a lot of people in these situations where the thing's just not working, going to ask for a job, A, it's normal, B, it's incredibly mortifying because you're like, shit, I'm supposed to be this guy who has this business, I put all my identity into it, now I…”
May 11, 2026
Puri: Generative founders suffocate companies by releasing too many ideas
“If you're very generative with ideas, feels good, and the ideas themselves might be great ideas, might be a very sound idea, and so it seems like you're doing nothing wrong, but you can literally drown your company in ideas, and I've done this many times, espe…”