Overall some good takeaways; this caught my attention though:
One philosophy I have at AngelList is I would rather have someone working on the wrong thing and do it their way and be motivated, than working on the right thing and do it my way and not be motivated. The reason is because I think that management’s ability to predict what to work on or what’s going to be useful is actually very low.
AngelList is on path to disrupt LinkedIn in the tech industry and I love it.
(Not that I ever think AngelList will be so broad as to displace LinkedIn in other markets. But in terms of tech, it's clearly headed in that direction.)
I wonder if this is LinkedIn's future: being disrupted one industry at a time by smaller, more curated communities like AngelList.
Can we also have the discussion that forcing everyone in to competing private entities based solely on profit motivation has some serious downsides to consider?
This is important because non-technical people have a very hard telling what’s possible and what’s not and we’re in the business of technology so it’s important to understand capabilities, outcomes, tradeoffs, all those kind of things.
There's another side to the technology and how it applies to opportunities and business in general: If the businesses and people you seek to help/be your customers don't recognize it despite the problems they face and how your solution can solve it, then you are going to be too early. One of my family members has a small business and completely castes aside the notion that automating things and having software for things like taking orders, tracking specific sales, and how much money is lost due to throwing away perishables at the end of the day for items can make their job easier and their business more efficient. There's a big disconnect because of it.
One philosophy I have at AngelList is I would rather have someone working on the wrong thing and do it their way and be motivated, than working on the right thing and do it my way and not be motivated. The reason is because I think that management’s ability to predict what to work on or what’s going to be useful is actually very low.