Vinod Khosla is the founder of Khosla Ventures, a firm focused on assisting entrepreneurs to build impactful new energy and technology companies. https://twitter.com/vkhosla https://www.khoslaventures.com/ Previously he was the founding CEO of Sun Microsystems, where he pioneered open systems and commercial RISC processors. How to Build the Future is hosted by Sam Altman - https://twitter.com/sama *** Topics 00:00 - Vinod’s intro 00:40 - A zero-million-dollar company vs a zero-billion-dollar company 3:50 - What percentage of investors in Silicon Valley are good long-term company builders? 4:20 - Who has earned the right to advise an entrepreneur? 6:20 - Which risk to take when 6:50 - Helpful board members 7:45 - Who to trust for what advice 10:30 - First principles thinking and rate of change 12:30 - Evaluating a candidate in an interview 13:45 - How much should a founder have planned and how ambitious should a founder be? 16:00 - Recruiting great people 18:30 - Building a phenomenal early team 19:50 - Being generous with early employee equity 26:30 - Gene pool engineering - https://www.khoslaventures.com/gene-pool-engineering-for-entrepreneurs 26:48 - The art, science, and labor of recruiting - https://www.khoslaventures.com/the-art-science-and-labor-of-recruiting 27:50 - How founders should think about investors 30:30 - Doers vs pontificators 31:30 - What does Vinod want to do in the next ten years? 31:40 - Reinventing Societal Infrastructure with Technology - https://www.khoslaventures.com/reinventing-societal-infrastructure-with-technology
“Try and fail, but don’t fail to try,” emphasized Vinod Khosla (MBA '80) during the Roanak Desai Memorial View From The Top talk on May 1, 2015. Khosla, the founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures, also discussed the importance of having a belief system and the "indulgence" of brutal honesty. Read more #GSBvftt takeaways on Twitter: http://stanford.io/1PcRiFf Learn more about the annual Roanak Desai Memorial View From The Top talk: http://stanford.io/1KAXDJS