Z fellows experience

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Earlier we got backed by @cory who is also organizing Zfellows.com—a program for aspiring founders to work on their project for a week and meet mentors like CEO of Netflix, CEO of Figma, @naval, and others Last week I participated in the program, here's how it went🧵:

The program is kept low-key and is not very intense, it aims to inspire, more than anything else, so every day there was just one joint morning call and one fireside chat with a guest

All the participants are young but very impressive. Many students from @MIT and @Stanford doing early-stage projects, someone who already went through @alliancedao, someone who worked in @SpaceX, someone who was invited to join @Apple straight out of high school—12 ppl altogether

The best advice we've got in the beginning was to ask guests tricky hard questions you won't hear on youtube. It really made meetings more valuable and memorable (no guests' feelings were harmed) Now, the guests:

@edwardlando founder of @misfitsmarket delivery service soon approaching 1Bn in revenue. Edward has tried hundreds of different things and still prefers to work on a few projects in parallel. Main takeaways:

- The secret to managing a lot of tasks and not burning out is using leverage and hiring good leadership teams, not trying to do everything yourself - Doesn't matter how many things you've failed, people will forget them all as soon as the first one succeeds @edwardlando

@kevinhartz angel investor in PayPal who've sold a company for almost a billion and co-founded @eventbrite - If the difference of IQs in a couple is greater than one standard deviation, the prob of divorce is ~100% - Choosing a partner is no different from choosing a co-founder

@rabois member of PayPal mafia, GP in Founders Fund, and co-founder of unicorn - Neither he nor Peter Thiel believes in AI or technology in general, they believe in solutions to problems and value creation - He doesn't see it now in #web3

- The main trait of Peter Thiel is an ability to extrapolate one data point to a whole picture (+ recognize the best talent early) - All founders they invested in are outliers by one (not always obvious) axis. Ordinary people do not change the world @rabois

@adamguild founder of owner.com who dropped out of school to build his company and now makes millions in revenue at the age of 23 - Believes that startup building is a competition that you can win only by giving your all. Only hires ppl who understand this as well

- Re burn-out: the ability to control own mental state is the main skill for a founder, and he has derived a methodology to stay positive and motivated - Why not be a founder: higher prob to build wealth by being an early employee; the process is harder than wildest expectations

My main personal takeaway is how normal and humane those "legends" are. They read emails, argue, and joke just as me and you, and the best attitude for them is a normal friendly attitude. It will affect my empathy and how I communicate in the future Great experience. Thx @Cory!