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Buchheit: Focus is a startup's ultimate weapon against tech incumbents

Paul Buchheit · The Path to $100B by Paul Buchheit · Y Combinator · Oct 24, 2018 · at 34:03

Paul Buchheit, creator of Gmail and YC partner, explains why startups can outcompete large tech incumbents by directing all resources toward a single focus.

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“Focus is one of the most important things, because, like, as a startup, it's actually, I think, your most powerful weapon, right? Like, the reason that you're able to take on, like, these big companies or whatever is because they're doing a thousand different things, right? And so the only way you can win is if you take Everything you have and you focus it at one point, right? Because you are underpowered in every way versus these other companies. So the one thing you do have that they don't have is you can be like absolutely 100% focused on the thing that you're doing.”

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