Gurley's learned habit is waiting rather than reacting, citing Silicon Valley Bank crisis as example where panic was unnecessary.
“For me, I've learned that if you just wait a little bit of time, a lot of problems go away.”
Gurley advocates waiting rather than reacting, citing Silicon Valley Bank weekend as example where panic proved unnecessary.
“I've learned that if you just wait a little bit of time, a lot of problems go away.”
Gurley used a thirty-year thought experiment to test career fit, mirroring Bezos's eighty-year self framework.
“I don't know that I said, I'm doing this exercise kind of like Bezos did when he started. But I said to myself, do I see myself doing this thirty years from now?”
Gurley says Benchmark quarterly studied missed deals extensively but never beat up partners over failures after Google miss.
“Bruce Dunleavy in our shop started saying what could go right as a theme. And I will tell you from that day on, we never spent much time talking about the failures.”
Gurley says venture capital requires breaking your own rules or you'll say no to everything.
“venture capital is a game where you have to one of the reasons, group decision making works so well is you're you're gonna have to break one of your rules or you're gonna say no to everything.”
“And I paused in each one of them and said, do I want to be here thirty years from now, like in that office?”
Gurley recommends annually asking yourself if you want to do your current job thirty years from now.
“I would encourage people to at least once a year rise up and say, is this what I wanna do with the rest of my life?”
Gurley describes his heuristic of asking whether he could see himself doing the same job thirty years later.
“I one day thought to myself, do I see myself doing this thirty years from now?”
Gurley offers heuristic for career decisions: ask yourself if you see doing current job thirty years from now.
“But I then had a reflection and this is the heuristic I think people can use. I, I one day thought to myself, do I see myself doing this thirty years from now?”
Gurley changed careers twice using the thirty-year test before finding his path to venture capital.
“I went to MBA school, I went to Wall Street, worked there for three years, had the same discussion with myself, which got me looking in a different direction,”
Gurley advises people may not find career fit until 30s or 40s and should check yearly.
“Some of these people didn't find their perfect fit until they're 30 or 40. And so get as many shots on goal.”
“I asked myself a question which I think anyone can use in any job you're in I said do I still want to be doing this thirty years from now and when I got when I asked myself that question it was a quick no like a quick no and then I moved”
Gurley explains VCs can only join two boards yearly so must emotionally commit, not just meet hurdle rates.
“But venture capitalists have a limited number of boards they can go on, probably two a year. And and so they don't have limited shot unlimited shots on goal.”
Gurley explains VCs invest in only two boards yearly requiring emotional commitment not just IRR.
“venture capitalists have a limited number of boards they can go on, probably two a year. And and so they don't have limited shot unlimited shots on goal.”
Gurley says he learned waiting solves many problems, citing Silicon Valley Bank weekend as example.
“And I used I I I used to go deep in them, and this weekend was a perfect example, and there's a good transition to Silicon Valley Bank.”
Gurley says many people acted manically during SVB crisis weekend but problems resolved by morning.
“But a lot of people did a lot of crazy manic things this weekend that didn't matter. Yeah. Because it all got solved this morning.”
Gurley shares Toby's meeting framework that explicitly removes status quo as an option.
“We are here to solve a problem. So the one option that we know we're not gonna leave the room doing is the status quo.”