The main thing to know about me is that I'm a champion of entrepreneurs and the startups they build. They are my rock stars. If in doubt, I side with them, and that's clear from my writing.
Look at MIT—the smartest people in the world. They start up 50 companies a year. Only 1 makes it.
As an investor, what we're not looking for is 'oh this is a cool app,' it's 'is this something that can become a big business?' You need to find those that can become real businesses.
I wanted to be a venture capitalist and join Sequoia Capital. They've financed and helped built some really special and enormously successful companies, including Google, Yahoo, Paypal, YouTube, Cisco, Oracle, Apple, and also Zappos.
It turns out that one of the biggest drivers of investors are both successful and non-successful startup founders.
A recipe I've seen work in early-stage startups is a small tight-knit group of passionate people who are obsessed with their vision of how to fix a particular industry. Conversely, teams composed of people with a lot of specialized experience at running a large business are not as likely to do very well in the first year or two of a startup.
You can make something big when young that will carry you through life. Look at all the big startups like Microsoft, Apple, Google, Facebook, Twitter, etc. They were all started by very young people who stumbled on something of unseen value. You'll know it when you hit a home run.
The myth of the peachfuzz billionaire has emerged. This new Horatio Alger typically launches his first start-up in middle school, and somewhere between the campus computer-science lab and a move to Palo Alto hacks up a Web site where users provide fun or useful content.
The only reality show that I do tune in for is 'Shark Tank.'
