
Andrew Warner's Mixergy Celebrates 1,000th interview - jl
http://mixergy.com/1000interview
======
AndrewWarner
One of the reasons Mixergy took off is the Hacker News community helped me.

I used to call up people who complained about my work on HN. I wasn't mad at
them. I really wanted to get feedback, and I knew there were smart people on
this site.

I got my guests from here too. Somewhere in the comment archive, you'll see
Derek Sivers agreeing to do an interview because I responded to his HN comment
about offering to help people in this community.

When I moved to Argentina and didn't know anyone, I organized a Hacker News
meetup. I made more than startup/work friends. I met people like Chad DePue,
whose family became close with me and my wife.

I know we talk about improving the comments on HN, and I'm always for
improvement, but there's a huge amount of value here right now. And there has
been for years.

I know this could sound sappy, but thank you Hacker News.

~~~
teej
Andrew, I just want to say that I was a hater. You reached out and got
feedback from me. It didn't change my opinion a lot, but I appreciated the
effort.

That was years ago, now everything has changed. I am a huge fan and continue
to follow your new interviews. I've reached out to you with questions and you
respond quickly. I think what you're doing is great.

Whatever it is you're doing man, keep it going.

~~~
oskarth
What was your opinion back then and what made it change?

Thanks for being "open" about being a previous hater by the way.

------
jl
Congratulations to Andrew for all your wonderful interviews since 2008! Glad
to be a part of the celebration. I meant to ask you during my interview: what
have you found is a secret to getting people to open up and share their most
interesting stories/insights?

~~~
AndrewWarner
Thanks Jessica! Founders at Work helped inspire Mixergy, so your comment means
more to me than you can imagine.

My best question is, "for example?" That helps guests move away from
generalities and they start telling a specific story.

The other thing that helps is being open about my own insecurities and
failures. It took me a long time to get comfortable telling anyone about them,
but whether I do it in an interview or a private conversation, it helps the
person I'm talking with get open.

------
andygcook
Andrew's interviews are awesome and he's a super nice guy to boot, always
willing to help founders out where he can. I remember listening to them on my
commute to work with my cofounder years ago. Those hours in the car were a
major source of early startup lessons. Mixergy is one of the best startup
resources out there in my opinion and is worth checking out if you haven't
yet.

PG's interview is still open even though it's over the premium membership
threshold - [http://mixergy.com/y-combinator-paul-
graham](http://mixergy.com/y-combinator-paul-graham)

------
stevenkovar
Congratulations to Andrew!

I've learned a lot from watching Mixergy, but more importantly from doing a
little role-reversal and interviewing Andrew myself. I took a 'Principles of
Interviewing' course in college and one of our assignments was to record three
interviews with people in the industry I wanted to get into. Being interested
in tech/entrepreneurship, Andrew was my top interview candidate.

The plan was to interview him first and get feedback because learning from
someone who does interviews for a living would prepare me for the other two
interviews. He was gracious enough to agree, and we recorded before one of his
regularly scheduled interviews. I was nervous as hell! I mean, you never
really see an interviewer being interviewed themselves. What questions do you
ask?

I asked a lot of basic questions (history, inspiration, setbacks, etc.) and a
few that made Andrew sit back and go, "hmmm, that's a good question..." but
the real knowledge I gained came with Andrew's feedback immediately after. The
magnitude of which has slowly been realized since: feeling uncomfortable is
good.

Doing something new almost always feels uncomfortable to some degree... and an
entrepreneur is almost always doing something new. Rather than try to mitigate
that uneasy feeling, you can take it and embrace it. That dissonance between
your gut and your brain is the origin of curiosity; where knowledge is needed
to fill the holes. If something feels uncomfortable, it's because you haven't
done it enough. You don't fully understand it. While it helps to have a mentor
who can say whether an uneasy feeling is normal and how to get over it, the
important thing is to just get your hands dirty. Just do that new task, or ask
that difficult question.

It's been rewarding to watch Mixergy develop over the years—to see Andrew
dirty his hands and dive into that space which makes every interviewee feel
uncomfortable and vulnerable (as well as himself).

Thanks for everything, Andrew!

------
triplesec
Andrew's one of the most accessible, down-to-earth chaps in the tech worlds;
an empathetic, thoughtful, engaging and energetic collection of decency! I'm
an old friend from another place, so I'm biased, but if you get the chance go
and hear him speak, and even more so listen to those around him: because
Andrew's great skill is to gather creative, intelligent and constructive
creatures, and encourage them to be even better.

------
WadeF
Epic props to Andrew. Growing up in Missouri I didn't have access to a lot of
tech startup expertise. Andrew's interviews were one of the best ways I
learned the basics of building a tech business.

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RRiccio
As a young kid, Founders at Work was a great source of inspiration. After
reading it, the dream of doing a startup was born.

When I actually started doing it – in Brazil, a place with not many startup
role models – Mixergy became a guide on actual tactics to use. I would listen
when commuting to/from work and this made the goal much more actionable.
Hearing about other founder's stories – and, thanks to AndrewWarner's
squeezing, every _single_ detail of their stories – pushed me to go much much
farther than I would've been able to go otherwise.

Thanks Andrew and congratulations!

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paperwork
I used to listen to his interviews a year or two ago, during my commute. He is
a fantastic interviewer, really digs and asks specifics of how an entrepreneur
decided something. Congrats to him!

------
orky56
Congrats! I only discovered Mixergy after hearing Andrew moderate a discussion
panel. His interviews are only a piece of the value he provides to the
community. His signature is empowering the interviewee to be most impactful by
his understanding of what the audience wants to hear about. He really gets to
the heart of the issue and lets the interviewee surface what actually matters.
Thanks, Andrew!

------
jamesshamenski
Big congrats Andrew! I've been listening from the beginning and find it to be
an immensely valuable way to learn about different businesses.

Question, what's next? Don't kill me if this is your 1,000th episode, I just
started listening to it : )

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raheemm
Andrew congrats and thanks so much for making so many awesome interviews
available for free. You are in a way responsible for my own evolution into
startupland. I watched Dane Maxwell's two interviews on your site (among many
others), which lead me to taking his awesome entrepreneurship course, which
lead me to starting my own startup, and here I'm on the verge of going full-
time with it. Will be relying on your interviews to continue to build & grow
my startup and hopefully be interviewed by you some day :)

------
mikecuesta
It's really hard to quantify how valuable Andrew and his interviews have been
to me on a personal, professional and spiritual level. Congrats Andrew, you've
earned this in spades.

------
dirtyaura
Congrats Andrew! You have shown admirable persistence while building Mixergy,
kudos.

Question: If you picked 3 of your interviews, that had the most unconventional
advice, what would they be?

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dools
Andrew, I've told you this a lot already but it's worth adding my voice
publicly: the work you've done on mixergy saved my life. Thanks doesn't even
come close.

EDIT: I also made this list of interviews that had the biggest impact on me:
[https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NCgw0_j9gAp9IjlaCwb15gzR...](https://docs.google.com/document/d/1NCgw0_j9gAp9IjlaCwb15gzRThwouX0Osw1DR9uXbbU/edit?usp=sharing)

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FollowSteph3
I've been listening for years and I can say you have some really great
interviews. What I really like is how actionable some of your interviews are.
That to me is the biggest differentiator for your interviews.

You might be surprised to hear this but I've used some of your interviews as
training material for people working for me in the past.

------
fharper1961
Thanks Andrew for all the time and effort. My big regret is that I didn't
start listening before 2011!

------
vblord
I've listened to about 400 out of the 1000. Congrats. Thank you for doing this
for all of us!

------
kimonos
Wow! Congrats and keep it up!

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jmomo
I tried listening to his podcast a few times. Way too much arrogance all
around, and the constant use of marketing and weasel words during the
interviews made my blood pressure go up. It's a common personality type in
SV/SF tech area that I really don't like, which is why I live and work outside
of it.

I consider it a personal fault of mine that I have a low pretentiousness
tolerance, because in between all the pretentiousness and clumsy embedded
commercials (free version only?) there really is some great business knowledge
in these interviews.

I could have said something similar of Russ Roberts' Econ Talk a few years
ago. He started off as a faulty interviewer; constantly interrupting his
guests to get his own very important opinion in. But, he has improved
dramatically since then. I can remember one particular interview he had with
Bill Black, where he just wouldn't shut up and let Bill finish his statements,
and ultimately half the episode was just a jumble of incoherent back-and-forth
over minutia.

I'll download a few recent episodes and give them a try to see if things have
changed in the last few years.

~~~
nedwin
Really?

I've found him to be honest and sometimes cutting with his interviews.

Anytime someone is bullshitting or using weasel words he tends to call them
out, if not directly then at least making them squirm.

Maybe you started listening before I did but I feel like I've listened to
almost all of them.

Also +1 on Russ Roberts being a great host, I just wish there were more
episodes with Mike Munger.

~~~
SyneRyder
One example: the Rand Fishkin interview. Definitely not accusing Rand of
weaseling, but that moment where Andrew asks "What are you feeling right now?"
cut through to the honesty of running a business. And huge kudos to Rand for
being so honest about burnout on camera.

Another example might be where Steve Blank called out Andrew during the
interview, and they kept that in the podcast. There's something really honest
& genuine about leaving that moment in.

Mixergy has improved so much over the years. Really shows the value of
practice & persistence. Congratulations on the 1000, Andrew.

