Erik Torenberg
@eriktorenberg
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Founder @turpentinemedia | Co-founder/founding team @beondeck , @villageglobal @producthunt
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I’m excited to (finally) announce the launch of my newest incubated venture:
@TurpentineMedia
, a network of podcasts, newsletters, and more covering tech, business, and culture, from the perspective of industry insiders and experts.
Think The Ringer or Barstool, for tech.
We…
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There should be something like a Wikipedia for careers:
Lists of career paths, how & what skills you'll need to break-in & rise up, how much $ you’d earn over time, lifestyle/happiness pros&cons, recommended paths based on interests & skills & personality type, case studies etc
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A Facebook employee who blocks FB for their kid.
An Ivy League professor who has their kid homeschooled / not attend university.
A VC who tells their friends to bootstrap and not take VC funding.
What's the best term for this type of phenomenon?
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Underrated skill: taking young people seriously.
Treating them w/ similar respect others will give them in a few years--or not immediately discounting them because of their age.
Later on, they’ll remember who treated them well & who saw something in them before others did.
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Some of my favorite Naval Ravikant takeaways & quotes from his interviews 👇
"Anger is a hot coal that you hold in your hand while waiting to throw it at somebody else"
"Desire is a contract you make with yourself to be unhappy until you get what you want"
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I prefer phone to Zoom so I can pace around like a crazy person.
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Found a new favorite philosophy podcast, went to look up where the host did his PhD, & instead found this.
I'm endlessly inspired by the idea that people can gain world-class expertise w/o needing approval from traditional gatekeepers, & by the sheer force of will to get there.
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It’s funny that plagiarism is the final boss battle for the systemic collapse of academic research.
Sure, the studies may be p-hacked and fake, the outcomes may be useless, the fields may be totally corrupt, none of it is ever read, but at least everything is cited properly.
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The hypocrisy of elites: They recommend average outcomes for everyone else, but seek the best for themselves.
They recommend harmful behaviors and counterproductive policies for non-elites while being the ones most insulated from the consequences.
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A friend told me that if he has a bad experience or is in a bad mood, he attributes it to a biological need (e.g. hunger, tiredness) rather than psychological one (some complex).
Even if it's untrue, the former provides more agency than the latter (e.g. "Oh, I just need to…
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Who are the ppl in your career who took a chance on you?
Who either put their time, reputation, or even money on the line to open doors for you?
I'm inspired by ppl who cosign others & help them break in, & want us to recognize those ppl, so we encourage more ppl to do the same
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Underrated skill for founders: Altitude shifting.
People are often either good at high-level strategy or atomic-level execution, but rarely both.
It's the ability to zoom out & paint the 5 yr vision, and then drop down into the weeds of day-to-day, & see how the two connect.
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This is a clip worth watching because it explains much of how some establishment journalists attribute value to society versus how producers/builders think about it.
“Just because you can land a rocket on a surf board doesn’t mean you get to be...a jerk” as though his online…
Bill Maher Flips the Script on Kara Swisher After She Calls Elon Musk ‘A Jerk’
BILL MAHER: “He’s a complicated guy.”
KARA SWISHER: “He’s just not a complicated guy. He’s just a jerk. But go ahead.”
BILL MAHER: “I can easily prove he’s a complicated guy because yesterday I saw…
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Uber and Airbnb are marketplaces that figured out how utilize an idle asset.
Airbnb turns spare bedroom into extra cash, Uber turns your car into extra income.
However, the most valuable asset in the world that’s underutilized isn’t cars or bedrooms--it’s people.
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Michael Jordan, like Steve Jobs, wouldn't be as revered if he came up today
A ruthless desire to win / be great is no longer as aspirational as self-acceptance
We prefer contentment to relentless ambition, not appreciating that it was someone's ambition that enabled our comfort
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When you find a person with a high slope/growth rate—invest in them, hire them, find ways to work with them.
They’re often insatiably curious, relentlessly resourceful, and either have something to prove or are compelled by a greater calling.
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What’s the best term for the phenomenon by which people create additional complexity in order to preserve their role & importance?
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I'm increasingly interested in the idea of "personal moats" in the context of careers.
Moats should be:
- Hard to learn and hard to do (but perhaps easier for you)
- Skills that are rare and valuable
- Legible
- Compounding over time
- Unique to your own talents & interests
1/ In the literature of growth & marketing, there is this concept called “loops”
I’m curious to explore “loops” in the context of how people make career decisions and think about how to build career capital over time.
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1/ Below is my perception/(limited) understanding of Peter Thiel's worldview:
People don’t understand how important economic growth is.
It’s the only thing sustaining the planet. Without it, we go into malthusian war.
It's a shame Peter Thiel keeps his most controversial ideas to himself.
I've listened to about ~13 interviews—he rarely deviates from the script.
He really is like a chess master, planning his moves several steps ahead.
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Shoutout to everybody who’s
— expressing gratitude
— refraining from unnecessary judgements, gossip, blame, passive-aggressiveness, etc
— forgiving others & themselves
— practicing self-care
— trying to kick a bad habit
— seeing the best in people, letting them grow & change
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A common trope in VC is to ask whether the most important thing is the product, market, or team.
@pmarca
@eladgil
@arachleff
agree:
Markets are most important
But how to evaluate and pick markets?
@nujabrol
and I are working on a definitive guide. Some preliminary thoughts:
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Underrated skill: managing expectations.
More precisely: selling while *also* underpromising—and then overdelivering.
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Invest in your friend’s companies. Even 1k if you can. They’ll appreciate it and you’ll minimize potential regret.
Except your dumb friends. Be their advisor.
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Some signs of intellectual maturity:
— No heroes or villains (ppl are complicated)
— Not needing apologies from anyone (e.g. see flaws/mistakes w/ compassion instead of taking it personally)
— Forgive the past, but change behavior for the future
— Embrace paradoxes + tradeoffs
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Here are some of the most interesting books that changed my mind in 2020:
Thread👇
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A major financier is now saying *in public* that the President of Harvard is not only incompetent & a plagiarist, but that she only still has her job b/c the board is scared of being called racist...and he’s not cancelled, he isn’t losing LPs—he's actually got support
Vibe shift
I find it difficult to believe that the
@Harvard
Corporation board could still be in unanimous support of President Gay.
They must now realize that they made a bad choice and that their continued support for President Gay is not just enormously damaging to Harvard, but it is…
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Personal trainer, but for intellectual growth:
You identify what you want to learn and the trainer tells you what to read, who to follow, & assembles domain specific tutors & peers.
We have intellectual equivalent of classes/bootcamps, but not trainers who take a holistic view.
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Invest in friendships only if you plan to have them for the next 50 years.
Use your job to build skill-sets you’re going to use for the next 50 years.
Pick up hobbies only if you’ll pursue them for the next 50 years.
Everything great compounds.
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It's staggering how many talented ppl w/ $ are working jobs they dislike b/c they're scared of the perceived reputational consequences of not having another job lined up but then are too busy to find a new job so they stay at the job they dislike (eg consulting)
What's a solve?
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Frameworks for coming up with startup ideas 👇
"The best way to come up with startup ideas is to lead an interesting life & be curious.
If you put yourself in a position to have problems—if you're at a company, if you start a family, etc—you'll be in a position to have ideas."
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“In my 20's, I worried about what people were thinking about me.
In my 30's, I stopping caring what people were thinking about me.
In my 40's, I realized no one was really thinking about me very much.”
-
@adwane
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Ever day, 138,000 people are lifted out of poverty. That's been the trend for the last 25 years.
That could have been the headline of every newspaper for the last 25 years. But it isn't because things getting steadily better isn't news. It doesn't spark outrage, it doesn't sell.
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Here are some of the most interesting books, ideas, and thinkers I explored, went deep on — and that, as a result, changed my mind — in 2019:
Thread 👇
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If you started a new co tomorrow, what would you start?
"Give away your ideas" -
@kevin2kelly
e.g.
- Kickstarter for ppl
- Duolingo for math/science
- Mattermark for talent
- Airbnb for homeschool
If you pursue an idea on this thread, give a shoutout to the recommender. :-)
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The credential is the last element to be unbundled from college:
- education (MOOCs)
- networks (accelerators)
- credentials (stay tuned)
My bet: P2P credentials
If I trust you & you say X is the best young person you've worked with, that means more to me than a Harvard degree
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What goes around comes around, not because of karma, but b/c game theory
Life is infinite game: If you co-operate, ppl will co-operate w/ you. If you defect, ppl will defect.
To get long-term cooperators, you must suffer some defectors (“get taken advantage of”).
Don’t defect.
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Rough summary/takeaways of "Sovereign Individual" (written in 90s):
The thesis is that the internet is going to lead to unbundling & modularizing of government.
We'll transition from being a "citizen" of gov'ts to a "customer", + the change will mirror other tech revolutions.
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Sometimes you meet someone when they’re scattered and then they start a company and ask you to invest and you’re like “nah, they’re too scattered” and then they become a unicorn and you’re like WTF
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Here's a meta thread of some of my favorite twitter threads, updated edition 👇
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Why is the OpenAI board not saying anything?
Nearly all of Silicon Valley is defending the other side, and barely anyone one is speaking up for the individual board members because it's hard to defend someone who won't defend themselves.
When no one hears from you, everyone…
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Many young ppl feel constrained by lack of big network, but IMO they're constrained by the value they can provide a network
They think they need to get coffee w/ X
IMO they need to develop a skill, expertise, asset so that when they get coffee w X/ they have something to offer
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If you are trying to sell yourself, and you don’t have world class credentials, sell your rate of growth instead.
“Don’t look at what college I went to or companies I’ve worked at, look at all I’ve done in this past year, and what that means for what I’ll do in the next year.”
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Highly underrated skill: Transforming an idea into a meme.
You have to capture the essence of an idea such that it’s so crisp & compelling the reader immediately gets it + shares.
Combines poetry, brevity, knowledge of how ideas spread—and a genuinely novel concept or framing.
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in 2005,
@paulg
discovered an arbitrage opportunity by identifying that young technical founders were being overlooked
in 2019, with the rise of no-code & the intense focus on technical founders, perhaps the pendulum has swung + a new arbitrage opp is biz&product minded founders
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What are some non-obvious ideas or habits that can change your life—that once you know about them, you don’t want to live without them again?
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The average ambitious person spends too much time accumulating optionality & too little time taking actual risk.
They compete insanely hard to accumulate options for the future, instead of figuring out what they really want to do & doing that instead.
We’re obsessed w/ optionality:
“I don't know what I'm gonna do w/ my life so I’m gonna get a degree”
“I don’t know what to do w/ this degree so I'm gonna get a grad degree”
“I don't know what to do w/ grad degree so I’m gonna get consulting job to figure out what job I want.”
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Spoke to three people this week who wanted to leave their job / start a company but couldn’t because of visa issues. Such a deadweight loss to society.
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Difference btw West & East Coast mentality re: money
East: Conflict of interest. If you have an investment in something, your word is less credible
West: Put your money where your mouth is. If you *don’t* have an investment in something, your word is less credible
h/t
@balajis
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Here are favorite takeaways & quotes from Sam Altman interviews
It takes 10yrs to create a great startup. If you don’t love & believe it, you’ll likely give up at some point along the way. There’s no way I know of to get through the pain without a belief that the mission matters
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Underrated skill:
Not taking it personally when someone you reach out to doesn’t respond or even rebuffs you
Some of my closest working dynamics are with folks who were once either uninterested or too busy, but then, much later, met w/ me.
Too much pride can hold you back.
Underrated skill: Not taking rejection personally.
Paradoxically, people sometimes want to know that they can reject you without penalty (that they don’t "owe" you anything) before accepting.
If people know you won’t guilt, judge, blame, or be offended, they’ll commit easier.
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Career update: After ~7 great years at Village Global and now that we've closed our third fund, I’m transitioning to a venture partner role where I’ll continue supporting our portfolio over the next several months.
What’s next for me? I am excited to start something new and I’m…
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Tfw you chat with someone so ambitious you realize you could think bigger. Like an order of magnitude bigger.
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Deep Dive into Marketplaces:
- Vertical marketplaces
- B2B marketplaces
- Unit economics
- Case studies
- Understanding liquidity
- Mistakes founders make
High-level overview 👇
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If college students are forced to stay at home for significantly longer, it'll be harder to obfuscate how overpriced many colleges are.
Why are students paying so much for online education they could have likely found better versions of for cheaper or even free?
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Fiver exists, but someone should make 'Grander' - a site where you can pay $1,000 or more for anyone to do a high-value task.
Where's the button you can press on the internet for a smart person to do a task for you in the next 24 hours?
Like a white collar Task Rabbit
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One of my favorite things is finding people who are great and unknown -- high aptitude, low credential -- and amplifying, connecting, and working with them.
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People look at high valuations in early-stage venture and conclude there’s too much capital.
Another explanation for high valuations is we’re suffering a scarcity of (great) founders.
A thread on why we’re suffering from a founder scarcity and some ideas on how to solve it.👇
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There will be many more multi-billion dollar businesses in the people search & matchmaking spaces.
“People Search Engines”:
- Career
- Dating
- Friendship
- Interests / hobbies
- Teacher / student
- Care giving
Right now, the data exists—it’s just stuck in people’s heads.
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1/ Here’s a list of conversational frameworks I’ve picked up that have been helpful.
Please add your own.
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There’s an arbitrage opportunity in discovering people who are great at what they do but weak at selling themselves, describing their career ambitions, or even finding the right roles for them in the first place.
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Sharing some big news today:
- We’ve launched a $100M community-backed accelerator to fund people as early as pre-company
- We provide $25K advances for people to quit their job and explore whether they want to start a company
- Now Co-CEO at On Deck
Announcing ODX, a $100M accelerator to back the next generation of founders.
• $125k for 7% from us + the community
• Access to our network to hire, fundraise, or find customers
• 100% customized for you
Apply (or invest) today 👇
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2011: The next big thing will start out looking like a toy
2021: The next big thing will start out looking like a meme
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Unbundling the university:
Education - YouTube, Masterclass
Accountability - Lambda
Network/Alumni - Village Global, On Deck
Credential - Github for X, P2P
Flirting w/ Marxism - Read the NYT
Dating - Tinder
Moving away from parents - Airbnb, Common
Friends - Clubhouse, Twitter
Unbundling the university:
- liberal arts
- technical education
- summer camp
- dating market
- sports
- co-living
- salons
- hedge fund
- 4 year vacation
- flirting w/ marxism
- coming of age
- alumni network
- credential
- prestige
- insurance policy
- identity
- coming of age
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Underrated skill: Not taking rejection personally.
Paradoxically, people sometimes want to know that they can reject you without penalty (that they don’t "owe" you anything) before accepting.
If people know you won’t guilt, judge, blame, or be offended, they’ll commit easier.
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"If you're so smart, why aren't you happy?"
I like this Q because it also attacks the deeper idea some ppl have that cynicism/bitterness/pessimism is somehow a cooler aesthetic or a more enlightened way of being.
h/t
@naval
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The first fund idea I had was "backing founders for life."
Founders often take a few swings before hitting their home run.
Someone should do this:
Identify founders you want to be in biz w/ for decades & "secure" you're allocation by committing earlier than anyone else would.
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1/ In the literature of growth & marketing, there is this concept called “loops”
I’m curious to explore “loops” in the context of how people make career decisions and think about how to build career capital over time.
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Venture capital to many is a luxury afforded my founders who have networks etc
Ironically, many of the ppl who’ve previously raised hundreds of millions prefer to bootstrap for their next company
Most people want VC, but the true luxury is being able to grow your biz without it
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Thread on some lessons learned from recording ~500 podcast episodes 👇
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Here’s an on-going meta thread of some of my favorite twitter threads:
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If you want to consistently receive constructive feedback, make sure that when other people give you that feedback, you make it as good of an experience for them as possible, or else they won't give it anymore.
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I'm curious if there’s something more durably & intensely motivating than the desire to prove people wrong
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You get wealthy owning equity, not renting out your time
The two main ways to get, say, ~4% or over equity in startups are to either invest in them or cofound one
Of course, there are many examples of ppl who picked right co to join & got wealthy. Different risk/reward tho imo
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The first 10-20 years of ed-tech was about taking education and putting it on the web—we got MOOCs, Masterclass, & online tutors.
The next 10-20 years will be about the web fundamentally changing what we mean by education—We'll get On Deck, Lambda, Pioneer, Interact, CBCs, etc
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Hey Everybody. I’m excited to finally release my main interview show that I'll host for the rest of my life.
First episode with
@pmarca
is out now. Next guests include
@DavidSacks
,
@balajis
,
@ezraklein
,
@KTmBoyle
,
@JTLonsdale
, & more
Preview of the episodes below:
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Next level tactic when closing a sale, candidate, or investment:
Ask: “What needs to be true for you to be all in?”
You'll usually get an explicit answer that you might not get otherwise. It also holds them accountable once the thing they need becomes true.
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Some smart person looking to break into venture should create a Stratechery for early stage VC.
Take the fundraising announcements and explain & analyze the broader trends behind them.
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The secret to happiness is turning off all notifications.
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Some of my favorite takeaways & quotes from Keith Rabois interviews 👇:
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Why do high school jocks tend to be less cool in their adult years?
Innovator’s dilemma.
Since they’re too busy serving existing customers, they can’t invest in R&D.
What got them here (athleticism/looks -> popularity) often won’t get them there (expertise -> wealth, status).
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Reality is up for grabs right now.
We're seeing more and more groups bootstrapping their own reality.
People call this "community building" but sometimes it's literally people defecting the shared sense of mainstream reality that has existed for centuries and creating new ones
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There are many aspiring founders who would start companies but they have higher cash needs (e.g. b/c family, etc)
If there were more opportunities for founders to get guaranteed ~$200K & 40-60% equity, more cos would get off the ground. Incubators/studios should fill in this gap
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My guy was fucking scrubbing toilets at Safeway and now he runs the fucking best philosophy podcast in the world I'm literally tearing up it's so inspiring.
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Every scaling company should consider having a fund to invest in their employees who leave (after ~4 yrs) to start cos—& should let employees invest
Doubly incentivizes top talent to join & stay:
- Ensures that they'll be a funded entrepreneur
- Lets them build VC track records
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Start a company.
Start an angel portfolio.
Start a newsletter, podcast, media empire.
Start a new career.
Start something.
Here's the long-term vision for On Deck:
We’re thrilled to announce: On Deck has raised $3M to build a modern education institution — a platform serving the many strands of identity of ambitious people who want to change the world.
Here's a thread + short deck about where we're going next 👇👇
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1/ There are two types of American industries: one that has had rapid innovation and falling prices, and one that has had the opposite.
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1/A decade ago, I took my first device-free, solitude experience.
Ten years and 100s of “solos” later, I can say with confidence that if I could give any bit of advice to my younger me it would be to spend at least one day a week in device-free solitude.
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The gap between the amount of money held by people/institutions who don’t know how to spend it and the amount of talented people who, with more money, would do incredible things is mind blowing
We need to accelerate the rate at which capital, ideas, & talent can find each other
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What piece of media (book/essay, podcast, video) has most inspired you to be positive-sum?
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Put people in business:
If your friend is thinking about starting a company or fund, offer to be their first check if you can
If they want to be a creator, offer to be their first subscriber
Whatever they want to do, offer something that shows you believe
They'll remember you
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1/ Someone emailed me asking how to break into VC, so I wanted to answer on Twitter where others could see and contribute to the conversation.
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1/ Some initial thoughts on personal moats:
Like company moats, your personal moat should be a competitive advantage that is not only durable—it should also compound over time.
Characteristics of a personal moat below:
I'm increasingly interested in the idea of "personal moats" in the context of careers.
Moats should be:
- Hard to learn and hard to do (but perhaps easier for you)
- Skills that are rare and valuable
- Legible
- Compounding over time
- Unique to your own talents & interests
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Big Update:
We're eager to finally announce Village. Excited to work with great founders from all over the world.
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A friend asked me to defend technology in two tweets. Curious for critiques, or your own version. Here's mine:
Society survives or dies based on its ability to sustainably grow the pie.
Without a growing pie, there’s a winner for every loser, and we engage in zero sum conflict.
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What fields/sectors/skill-sets look dumb or weird right now, but in a few years may look mainstream or much bigger than they are currently?
Examples: playing video games competitively, cannabis, or bitcoin in 2012.
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The next YC isn't an accelerator—it's a marketplace.
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My favorite tips on how to raise a seed round 👇
Paraphrasing Paul Graham:
Pretend you are a venture capitalist, that you have their incentives in mind, then convince yourself that you'd invest if you were them.
Convince yourself you can convince your partners too.
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