Alex LaBossiere @laboss

I sat down a second time with Keith Rabois (@rabois), General Partner at @khoslaventures and CEO at @OpenStore to talk operating.

We spoke about the Hollywood model of startups, picking co-founders, identifying, attracting and assessing talent, raising capital, building a board, delegating, metrics, and knowing what to measure.

0:00 - Intro
1:56 - Great Founders and the Bottleneck to Innovation
4:35 - Vertical Integration
6:24 - The Hollywood Model of Startups
7:41 - The “Why Now?” in Company-Building
9:50 - Multi-Product Companies
10:58 - Iteration and Pivots
12:52 - Picking Co-Founders
14:51 - Identifying Mispriced Talent
17:20 - Attracting Talent
20:57 - Assessing Talent
24:02 - Doing References
25:56 - Closing Hires
28:28 - Thinking 6 Months Ahead
31:36 - How Long Should You Interview For?
33:28 - Creating a Monopoly on Talent
35:44 - Raising Capital
37:40 - Screening Investors
41:21 - Building a Board
44:11 - Triaging and Identifying Problems
47:59 - Writing vs Editing and Consistent Voice
49:34 - Creating Transparency
50:50 - Barrels and Ammunition
54:55 - Task-Relevant Maturity
56:40 - On Delegating
59:21 - Measuring Inputs vs Outputs
1:02:58 - Underrated Metrics
1:05:22 - What Should More People Be Thinking About?

Feb 20, 2025 View on X →

https://x.com/laboss/status/1892604260547981448