This is an awesome talk by Tina Seelig, the director of Stanford’s Technology Ventures program. It’s clear why she has this job. She’s super upbeat and offers a very pragmatic yet motivational view of entrepreneurship. Don’t let the actual title of the talk fool you – it’s really a good set of pointers on what it takes to be great.
In the talk, Tina covers some key points from her book, What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20, and shares some insightful videos of projects from her classes – which ask students to try to create as much value as they can given very limited “seed capital”, ranging from $5 to post-it notes, to rubber bands. The point is to look way beyond the apparent limitations and to get creative. Some of the results are pretty inspirational. Go check them out, I won’t spoil them here.
She also shares a clip from Vinod Khosla reminding us that every problem is an opportunity: No one will pay you to solve a non-problem. So look for big hairy problems to solve. This sounds like an obvious point, but one that most people miss.
She also shares a personal experience to highlight the importance of creating your own luck. Specifically on the value of building new relationships – there’s at least a million dollars waiting for you in every room of strangers. You just need to go look for it.
She also reminds us of the old chestnut: Fail early (and cheaply), fail often. If you aren’t failing at least some of the time, then you probably aren’t going far enough.
Another point I really like is: Don’t wait to be anointed. Most people are conditioned to wait for others to tell them what to do. When you get a job, you are really getting the keys to the building. You have the opportunity to figure out what needs to be done and just go do it. Personally, I think that over-emphasis on job titles has done a tremendous amount of harm in limiting the scope of people’s thinking and how far they are willing to stretch. It reminds me of the parable of the Elephant and the Rope. I see people obliviously stuck in their invisible boxes every day.
Tina’s last point in the talk is also one of the best: Never miss an opportunity to be fabulous. Most people have been conditioned by bad schooling to do the minimum necessary to get a passing grade. Clearly, this kind of attitude is never going to lead to great success in life. My take on this is that with so many people shooting to just get by, it’s relatively easy to excel simply by aiming a little higher. I really like this statement because it emphasizes our personal role in our own success – you will certainly strike out many times along the way, but if you focus on being great at every opportunity you get, you’ll have your fair share of home runs.