Elad Gil
30 statements across 4 episodes · 4 bullish · 12 bearish · 2 people on the record · first statement Mar 8, 2018 by Elad Gil · said 7 times in 3 episodes since 2018 · across every show →
On the record as a speaker too: Elad Gil's record, appearances and statements → this page counts the times other people say the name.
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brought up most by Aravind Srinivas (2)
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2025 2 mentions in 1 episode
2018 5 mentions in 2 episodes 3 per episode
Everything said about Elad Gil, oldest first
Mar 8, 2018
Gil: Very early co-founder conflict is usually unresolvable
“Well, there, there's two types of, ah, co-founder conflicts, resolvable and unresolvable. Ah, I'd say, If it starts very early, usually it's unresolvable and somebody's gonna have to leave. If it starts late, usually there's a reason and you can fix it.”
Mar 8, 2018 negative
Mar 8, 2018
Gil: Needing to help a portfolio company daily signals fundamental flaws
“I think in general, when you help companies, it comes, it goes, and spikes, versus it's sustained throughout. If you're sustainably having to interfere or help with a company every day, then there's either something wrong with that company or with the founders…”
Mar 8, 2018 negative
Gil says passing on Lyft's $90M Series C was a major mistake
“One of the biggest mistakes I made from a passing perspective is I passed on Lyft for their Series C, which was a ninety million dollar valuation, and I think they're now in the, like, nine billion dollar raise range, so I missed a hundred X, or maybe post-dil…”
Mar 8, 2018 negative
Gil: Most angel investors care too little about valuation
“I think most angels actually care too little about valuation. And so often if you actually look at the return, say you do 10 investments, and I'm making up a number just to make it a round number, a 100,000 each, and nine of them go under and one works and tha…”
Mar 8, 2018 negative
Gil: Startup founder structured Jawbone exit leaving investors with severe losses
“So one company that I invested in That exited a jawbone, which then of course went bankrupt, ah, so it should have been a sign. They had, ah, five million dollars that was invested in the company collectively. They received, I think, fifteen million or so back…”
Mar 8, 2018 negative
Mar 8, 2018 neutral
Jul 27, 2018 positive
Jul 27, 2018 bearish
Jul 27, 2018
Gil: Early Facebook was mediocre at hiring but excelled at firing quickly
“Other companies like Facebook were known as not as good at hiring early on, although they'd gotten much better over time, but in the very early days they were known as not great at hiring, but they were very good at actually letting people go if they didn't wo…”
Jul 27, 2018
Gil: Early Google required eight interviews and hired well, but fired poorly
“Google was an example of a company that hired extremely well. They had, I think it was a minimum for a while of eight interviews per person, literally. And if you didn't do all eight, you wouldn't be able to get in kind of thing. And they were terrible at firi…”
Jul 27, 2018 positive
Gil: New executives should issue personal working-style guides to colleagues
“And so I thought that was just a brilliant onboarding tool that perhaps any executive joining a high growth company or any manager joining a high growth company should issue so that people just understand this is the fastest, best way to interact with me and j…”
Jul 27, 2018 bearish
Gil: Incumbents will capture most value in Internet of Things
“Internet of Things is a great example where I think most of the interesting things in that market will come from large electronics players who can just integrate it into something and then distribute it versus a new sort of one-off company that's just making a…”
Jul 27, 2018 bullish
Jul 27, 2018
Gil: Best startup entry point is 40-50 employees and $50M-$500M valuation
“In general, if you want to do best from a career perspective, and you didn't join in the very, very early days, the best time to join is when a company is probably on the order of 40, 50 people, and is worth, you know, somewhere between fifty and five hundred …”
Jul 27, 2018
Gil: Great organizations must excel at either hiring well or firing well
“There's an old saying that people either hire well or fire well, and you, if you at least do one of those, then you can build a really good organization. You know, fundamentally, most companies are kind of bad at both, and that really ends up biting them, beca…”
Oct 18, 2018 negative
Gil: A prominent Midas List investor tried clawing exit value at Mixer Labs
“The biggest issue we had there is we had a bad investor who, as we were exiting the company, basically tried to claw more value for themselves as part of our exit. And this is sort of a Midas list investor who's very well known now.”
Oct 18, 2018 bearish
Gil: Market is the singular determinant of startup success, not team
“The singular determinant of startup success is the market. And it's not the strength of the team. And so I think a lot of people talk about how great teams will always figure it out. And I've seen great team after great team in a terrible market just die becau…”
Oct 18, 2018
Gil: Thoughtful fundraising should take months, not a single week
“In general, I think you hear the news about these fundraisers that happen in a week, and you think every fundraise is going to take a week, but if you're actually being thoughtful on your side as well, it should take a couple months because otherwise you're no…”
Oct 18, 2018 negative
Gil: Most investors are fear-driven rather than ambition-driven
“In general, you'll find that most investors are fear driven versus ambition driven. They're kind of scared of missing something versus really excited and believe vigorously in something. And so high conviction investors are actually very valuable in my opinion…”
Oct 18, 2018
Gil: Tech startups tend to heavily underprice their products
“Especially technology-driven companies tend to really underprice their product under the belief that if they price it really low, it'll get them more market share more rapidly, and therefore they'll win the market, when in reality they've never run the experim…”
Oct 18, 2018 negative
Gil: Loose capital leads founders to delay pivoting or shutting down
“I think it's possible that in today's environment where capital is really loose, people actually wait too long to pivot or to shut down because they can keep raising more money. And I actually think that's a bad thing because it's locking up great people at th…”
Oct 18, 2018 positive
Gil: Startups should invest early in single-line build environments
“The other thing I've seen some people do, which I think actually helps a lot, is from day one they focus on the velocity of the team, and so they maybe focus on the build environment early, and making it so that anybody can run a full instance of the product w…”
Oct 18, 2018
Gil: Pivoting startups should be willing to switch markets entirely
“The one thing I would advocate is being willing to restart completely. Because typically when people pivot, they pivot within the same market versus across markets. And if you're in a bad market, that means you're going to die, because you're just going to go …”
Oct 18, 2018
Oct 18, 2018 negative
Oct 18, 2018
Elad Gil: Treat early startup hiring like filling limited life raft seats
“And I think the way you should think about your startup from a hiring perspective is it's almost like a light, a life raft. You know, your boat is sinking and you're on this little raft and there's five spots. And who are in those five spots? And if the people…”
Oct 18, 2018
Gil: Diligence investors through founders whose startups faced issues, not successes
“You should diligence them and ask the founders where either things didn't go well or where there was some issue over time or whatever it is. And that's more likely to reveal the truth about an investor than asking in a situation where everything worked.”