My first two tech startups were AMA (finance) and Ridacto (legal). I'm proud of and have learned a ton of lessons working on those.
This month I began embarking on my third startup adventure: Epirus. I've joined as Co-Founder and COO. Epirus is a venture-backed startup specializing in agile development of advanced defense systems. The team combines decades of aerospace & defense experience with Silicon Valley innovation in order to address 21st century threats, such as drones and other asymmetric technologies. The company name is inspired by the story of the mythical king Theseus who defended Athens with a bow that had an infinite cache of arrows called the Epirus bow. I wasn't really looking to work on anything new when I got a call somewhat out of the blue from a close college friend who had worked for over a decade at traditional defense contractors. He wanted to start a new type of defense company to protect against drones, and he wanted help on software, operations, and building a culture of innovation. That's where he thought I could help. I had always been interested in drones and working on software applied to challenges in the physical world. I knew absolutely zero about the defense space and was somewhat weary about that. Getting to know the rest of the team sold me on the opportunity because I was blown away by the technical rigor and awesomeness of my teammates (100+ patents, awards, etc.). And the excitement and support by 8VC was very encouraging. This is somewhat different from my other startups in a number of ways: traditional venture backing, my role as COO and sidekick to other amazing co-founders (as opposed to CEO or the first founder/co-founder), bigger team, and totally new industry/market for me. For me, this is an opportunity to learn a ton about a brand new space and build something awesome from the ground up, which I love doing. Go Epirus! P.S. Epirus is hiring!
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A good friend recently recommended to me the book Elon Musk: Tesla, SpaceX, and the Quest for a Fantastic Future by Ashlee Vance. As a fan of Tesla, SpaceX, and all the things I had heard about Elon as an entrepreneur, I was always interested in his life and learning more about his methods. This book turned out to be an awesome glimpse into all those things. I really enjoyed the detailed stories and the insider quotes from Elon and many of the people who worked closely with him. It reminded me of my tour of the SpaceX office with my UCLA Anderson Vistage group and the amazing opportunity we had to do a short Q&A with Elon when we were there. I could tell even then that he works extremely hard and thinks everything through "from first principles." His speaking wasn't polished or showy -- he just focused on facts and showed 200% commitment to his wild goals. Below are my notes on the book. I thoroughly enjoyed it and learned a lot from someone so passionate and working on things that actually matter in the long run and are changing the world. 1 elon's world Meaningful world view Saving the human race 2 Africa Wrote his own computer game Photographic visual processing in brain Read 10 hours per day as a child Went through all books in library and 2 encyclopedias 3 Canada Romantic Doesn't take no for answer Wanted to work on biggest impact areas: renewable energy, Internet, space 4 elon's first startup Hardware background Working 24/7 Living at office Zip2 bringing businesses online Quake tournaments Do or die but don't give up 5 PayPal mafia boss Banking internship Reinvested almost all money into X online bank Coups and issues with leadership and being kicked out 6 space x Moved to LA for aerospace and to escape valley Sending mice to Mars Mars Society Tried to buy rockets from Russians but was too expensive Read rocket textbooks and Made spreadsheet that showed could do it a lot cheaper Making as much as practical at spacex Engineers sitting next to factory workers and welders Son died; didn't believe in open grieving and wallowing in sadness When things go wrong must have all the info and a plan Work computers to play quake Lots of failed launches 7 all electric Straubel believed in Power of lithium ion batteries for solar car at Stanford Used Silicon Valley tactics instead of Detroit bureaucracy Sent engineers into field to be able to iterate faster Fired ppl due to typos Required extremely hard work Lots of delivery delays and issues with contractors 8 pain suffering and survival Team of nannies 7 days of work per week Worsening financial situation Divorce Day away from bankruptcy for both companies 9 liftoff Huge successes and contracts Need to understand how mechanical things work In house manufacturing Factory inside office with engineers 10 revenge of electric car Model s success Prototyped batteries for other car companies and beat their deadline expectations Faster more iterative testing Always come to meetings with alternative plan if have difficulties If something could not be done: only response is to take it down to the physics Wrote his own public relations responses Controlling whole product allows creation of lifestyle brand Not a new idea. All about execution. 11 unified field theory Solar energy market Callous interoffice Lack of empathy Cruel stoicism Obsessing over typos in emails Intuition on things u don't know isn't very good Close to Larry page Good ideas always sound crazy until they're not Wonders how to raise kids without adversity Requires more reading time than video game time No stupid video games allowed. Only those that have physics. Smart people need to have more kids Appendices Frivolous lawsuits against him Smartest programmers were in gaming industry and used Microsoft c++ libraries Thoughts on going public vs selling private stock options Based on Noah Kagan's recommendation on his interview with Tim Ferriss, I just finished reading Smartcuts: How Hackers, Innovators, and Icons Accelerate Success by Shane Snow. The book was a fun, quick tour of various techniques used by unconventional "hackers" who achieved success much more quickly than traditionally thought possible. I liked the beginning of the book more than the end, which seemed too light on new ideas and content. My favorite part of the book was the story of the perseverance of Jimmy Fallon. Intro Smart shortcuts to doing stuff way faster Lateral thinking Not following rules Smartcuts not just shortcuts which can be amoral Smartcuts are shortcuts with integrity Short Leverage Soar Part 1 short 1 hacking the ladder Presidents younger than senators BYU scavenger hunt game bigger or better Psychology of small wins Just keep the game going Pivoting accelerates growth Ladder switching in career Use credibility to switch ladders to bypass dues 2 training with masters Jimmy Fallon Justin bieber had the best mentors who brought him up Doctors learning patient handover from racing pit crews Formal mentorship bad idea; informal personal relationships better Learn and copy from masters yourself from books and videos of masters Learn attention to detail Study videos of masters obsessively and memorize facts and details of them 3 rapid feedback Startup funeral: Funerals for startups to share what learned when failed Past failure does not help with future ones according to studies But succeeding makes you more likely to succeed Failures caused more of own failures Seeing others fail makes u do better Doing well makes u do better Failure paradox, attribution theory of failures to external things but success to internal things When others fail we attribute failure to others but when others succeed we attribute success to luck Separate ego when you get feedback Rapid scientific experiments Part 2 leverage 4 platforms: the laziest programmer Abstraction Selective slacking Ruby on Rails Teaching kids how to learn instead of what to learn and memorize 5 waves Waiting for the right wave Pattern recognition Fast follower 6 superconnectors Giving Part 3 soar 7 momentum Progress makes u happy Big success needs u to continue progress even after big winning Just keep moving Build up potential energy so can leverage it when u get big break 8 simplicity Innovation is about doing something different or simpler not just bigger Simplify decisions to avoid unnecessary ones 9 10X thinking Elon musk Epilogue |
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