Insight
Hoffman: 10x hires almost certainly have glaring faults
“If you want to hire a 10 Xer, that person will almost certainly have glaring faults. Anyone that you could hire without glaring faults will be at best good. They will not be great.”
Insight
Hoffman: Leaders should delegate functions they are good at, not weak at
“Instead, delegate things that you're good at. This sounds really strange, so let me explain. The things that are the easiest to delegate are the things that you're already good at. You know how to do these things really well. You might already be an expert in …”
Insight
Hoffman: Most VC rejection reasons, especially TAM concerns, are lies
“The reason that most VCs give you a no is lies, and especially the reason of total addressable market in your TAM.”
Prediction Not checkable as stated
Hoffman: Managing vendors is the top skill for the next 20 years
“The number one skill to have over the next 20 years is the ability to select and manage vendors.”
Insight
Hoffman: Seeking career optionality is a mistake
“Never do things to gain optionality. Optionality is bad. You need to really have a purpose-driven life.”
Insight
Hoffman: The top reason VCs reject early-stage startups is disliking the team
“And the number one reason why a VC will pass on your business is that they don't like your team. This is especially true for seed and series A deals.”
Insight
Hoffman: Investor legal fee caps dictate how fast a term sheet closes
“The most non-obvious clause to negotiate is the amount that you're supposed to reimburse the investor's legal counsel. You're actually doing your investors a favor by negotiating this. This is an actual win-win to negotiate. The time it takes you to go from te…”
Insight
Hoffman: All great opportunities have big, obvious downsides
“Well, my simple heuristic Is that if the opportunity has very few downsides, it's almost certainly not a great opportunity. All great opportunities have very big and very obvious downsides.”
Insight
Hoffman: Companies rarely excel at areas outside their founders' core traits
“They rarely get great at the things that are not the traits of their founders.”
Assertion Not checkable as stated
Hoffman: Almost every company today has more vendors than employees
“Almost every company today has more vendors than employees.”
Insight
Hoffman: Most smart people mistakenly optimize for the midterm
“Many, most smart people optimized for the midterm. They delay gratification in the short term. They're experts at passing the marshmallow test, but while they think they're optimizing for the longterm, they're actually usually optimizing for the midterm.”
Insight
Hoffman: The smartest people think 10 days and 30 years out
“Smart people are always thinking 10 years out. The smartest people are always thinking 10 days out and 30 years out.”
Insight
Hoffman: 10x performers take more management time than average employees
“The better the person, the less time it takes to manage them. That's the obvious thing, but that's only up to a point. The true 10 Xers actually take more time to manage than the average performers.”
Insight
Hoffman: Never take advice from someone over a decade older
“This advice comes with a warning, which is never take advice from somebody who's more than 10 years older than you, and that's probably me.”
Insight
Hoffman: VCs will fund small TAM businesses if the team can expand adjacently
“VCs will happily invest in businesses with small TAMs if they think the team is good enough to move to an adjacent TAM once they're no longer growing at a hundred percent year over year.”
Insight
Hoffman: Large companies can only execute one or two things yearly
“Planning is really important at larger companies because larger companies can really only effectively do one or two new things per year.”
Auren Hoffman