The good people of Costanoa Ventures invited me to speak at their summit where they gather portfolio company CEOs to participate in an impressive set of sessions related to building and scaling startups. I was honored to be in the company of friends and respected colleagues like Nick Mehta and Rob Reid as presenters at the conference.
Costanoa asked me to speak about un-learning at this year’s un-summit and, as a (sometimes, some might say frequent) contrarian, I was only too happy to do so. The slides from the presentation are below. I focused on 4 topics:
- The sensible application of the popular Silicon Valley adage, “the folks who got you here aren’t the ones who will get you to the next level,” and how to reconcile it with an older, even more popular adage: “dance with who brung ya.”
- Generalizing the next-level adage beyond people to systems, processes, and operational strategies.
- Things to do and pitfalls to avoid in recruiting next-level executives, with a particular focus on avoiding very successful people caught in the lather/rinse/repeat trap.
- Critically thinking whether you have been successful because of, in spite of, or independent of a list of your company’s practices, values, and deeply held beliefs
This slides are here and embedded below.
Thanks to Greg Sands, Martina Lauchengco, and Rachel Quon for inviting me and giving me such a great topic to work with.
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