Silicon Valley's tolerance for failure and focus on action creates opportunities for future world-changing CEOs, who should surround themselves with great people and prioritize the community for success.

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  00:00

  Silicon Valley's tolerance for failure creates opportunities for future world-changing CEOs, as demonstrated by a Stanford student's experience with a classified ad start-up.

  • There is a chance that someone in the audience could be the CEO, CTO, or founder of a world-changing company in the next 10 years, thanks to the tolerance of failure in Silicon Valley.
  • Growing up in a small town, the speaker discovered his love for doing various things and was drawn to Stanford after reading "The New New Thing" and realizing it was a place where he could be himself and explore different interests.
  • A Stanford student creates a classified ad website to allow students to trade goods at the beginning and end of the year, teaching herself Ruby on Rails and learning enough to be dangerous.
  • Find people who can take your idea and make it even better, as demonstrated by the speaker's experience with a classified ad start-up.
  • Started photography while studying abroad in Florence during winter months with not much to do after class.
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  05:07

  Sometimes taking a risk and focusing on action is more important than having all the perfect information when starting a startup.

  • The speaker had to build and launch a website from afar due to lack of Wi-Fi in their building, using an iBook and syncing FTP at a public library.
  • The lesson learned was to focus on whether people are using the product rather than their opinions, and to value the skills learned while working on it, such as programming and marketing.
  • There is no perfect next move, so throw that idea out the window and have a bias towards action.
  • Sometimes you need to take a risk and make a trade-off between the appropriate amount of information and action to move forward and progress.
  • Starting a startup can be scary, but it's important to consider practical concerns like health insurance and bias towards action.
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  09:59

  Every experience counts, choose a job based on the people you work with, and surround yourself with amazing people.

  • Every little experience adds up and is foundational for your startup going forward, as seen in the example of Instagram filters coming from a photography class taken years prior.
  • The speaker worked in marketing at Google before starting Bourbon with a co-founder.
  • Choose a job based on the people you will work with, even if it means taking a lower salary, and surround yourself with amazing people.
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  12:46

  Surround yourself with great people and learn from them, as every move doesn't need to be perfect.

  • Surround yourself with great people and learn from them, as every move doesn't need to be perfect.
  • Bourbon was initially an html5 location sharing app created through combinatorial entrepreneurship.
  • Pitched HTML5 as the future to Horowitz, which allowed for quick iteration and feature launches, but faced challenges with slow performance and difficulty in adding icons to screens.
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  15:20

  Instagram founders used a location sharing app to focus on building the app, while the speaker discovered the popularity of filtered photos and made changes based on a girlfriend's suggestion.

  • The founders of Instagram used a location sharing app called Bourbon to determine what features people were using and how many users they had, and although they didn't have access to the same tools as today, it kept them focused on building the app.
  • The speaker discovered the popularity of filtered photos while on vacation and realized that it could be used to improve their app.
  • Girlfriend suggested adding something to the lecture notes, which led to the speaker considering her idea and making changes.
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  17:46

  Mike co-founded Instagram, which had a successful launch thanks to great hiring and building relationships in the small community of the valley.

  • The speaker researched how to change the look of pixels in an image, built the first filter called X Pro 2, and launched Instagram which gained 25,000 sign-ups on the first day and kept growing.
  • Mike is a pragmatic optimist who co-founded an app with one of the best launches ever.
  • Great hiring and building relationships with people in the small community of the valley helped create buzz and support for launching a product.
  • Believe in your idea even if others say it won't work, be your own advocate and take action to make it happen.
  • The speaker launched her startup at midnight and was surprised to see people from different time zones signing up immediately.
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  22:45

  Urgent request for additional server due to website traffic overload, while prioritizing community is crucial for success.

  • The speaker's company launched their website on a single server which couldn't keep up with the traffic, causing them to urgently request another server.
  • Instagram's success was a combination of luck, being in the right place at the right time, having the right team, and a lot of hard work, while also building an incredible community through meetups and events.
  • Prioritizing community as the greatest asset is crucial for the success of any service or product.
  • Over-monetizing can lead to losing the essence of what was built, as building a community from scratch requires hard work and dedication.
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  26:19

  Prioritizing the community and serving them has been one of the greatest advantages for the company, as seen in their posters that say "community first".