There are no negotiated salaries or raises at Basecamp . Everyone in the same role at the same level is paid the same. Equal work, equal pay. We assess new hires on a scale that goes from junior progr
One of the things that struck me most during our recent pieces on startup employee option plans is how things that impact the value of those options aren’t well understood, even if communicated or kno
Salesforce is worth $113 billion. 1% of $113 billion is $1.13 billion. ServiceNow is worth $34B and Workday is worth $33B. 3% of $33-34B is $1B. Atlassian is worth $20.5B. 5% of $20.5B is $1B. Why am
Want to start a startup? Get funded by Y Combinator . March 2009 A couple days ago I finally got being a good startup founder downto two words: relentlessly resourceful. Till then the best I'd managed
William Mougayar Dec 28, 2018 Yes, but even when you realize that- “focused too much on what they were doing at the time and not enough on what they could do, would do, and did do.”, the bigger assump
(When I asked Robert Morris to read a draft of "What Doesn'tSeem Like Work?" he replied with his own story, which he has allowedme to publish.) My father tried to interest me in programming somewhat b
Copy link benissimo commented Feb 11, 2016 From what I can tell, Plaid Link injects a login form onto a website and asks the user to supply their credentials for logging in to their bank. Doesn't that clash with the recommendations from banks to never provide credentials except when visiting the…
The Web’s Grain This site is an interpretation of my talk from Webstock, 2015. It is a companion to What Screens Want, a previous essay on designing natively
Part 4 The only thing that matters Posted on June 25, 2007 This post is all about the only thing that matters for a new startup. But first, some theory: If you look at a broad cross-section of startup
Want to start a startup? Get funded by Y Combinator . July 2013 One of the most common types of advice we give at Y Combinator isto do things that don't scale. A lot of would-be founders believethat s
Andrew Kortina is the cofounder of Venmo and Fin . Andrew blogs at https://kortina.nyc/ and is on Twitter @kortina . Topics 00:00 – Human dignity and work 7:35 – Creating jobs 9:35 – From The Beautifu
9 most useful pieces of advice I’ve received 4 min read · Nov 28, 2018 -- Here is my personal collection of good advice I’ve received over the years. I’ve received plenty but these are the few that I
When I first joined a startup in 2012 I did my best to ask the right questions when interviewing. My engineering background prepared me for engineering tasks and helped me write a resume, but it didn’
jason wright Nov 18, 2018 Sunday breakfast must be good in the Wilson household. fredwilson Nov 18, 2018 I wrote this before going to the gym. I just had breakfast post gym and coffee. I love Sundays
5 min read · Nov 13, 2018 -- Many people choose Medium lately as their go-to platform to blog. Kind of like Blogger a while back, it just seems what everybody has been doing (unless you are really nit
A talk prepared for UC Berkeley’s Build the Future speaker series in Oct 2018. The Cruel Tutelage of Pai Mei. Thank you all for coming this evening. I want to preface this talk by warning you that it’
T wo years ago, Ben Chestnut found a crumpled piece of paper in the trunk of his Mercedes GL63 SUV, alongside the muddy shoes and helmets he uses while mountain biking in the hills of northern Georgia
The world of technology business nowadays is dominated by VC-funded startups. The majority of tech news is about who raised another record round of funding. There is a cascading effect of this being p
“If you’re not paying for the product, you are the product.” I don’t know who said it first, but the line has achieved a kind of supernatural resonance online. And for good reason – it describes a kin
By now, everyone is tired of hearing about the iPad, but the negative responses are so perfectly misguided that it would be wrong to waste this opportunity. Even better, we can look back at the 2001 i
At the latest Apple Summit in Los Angeles the question of Apple’s valuation was foremost on many minds. The illustration I used there to discuss valuation is shown below. It shows the history of reven
In 2005, I cofounded Y Combinator, the first "accelerator." Today there are hundreds of them all over the world, but in 2005 what we were doing was so unusual that most people in Silicon Valley regard
[ From a tweet storm last week ] 1/The most important piece of advice I can give folks starting out: be great at an important skill. The important skills in the world right now include: a. sales b. coding c. product design d. growth e. design f. corporate storyteller 2/Refine your skill faster than…
At the end of a YC batch, the general consensus among the partners is that about 25% of the companies are on a trajectory that could lead to a multi-billion dollar company. Of course, only a handful o
2 min read · Jul 12, 2015 -- On June 26, 2008, our friend Michael Seibel introduced us to 7 prominent investors in Silicon Valley. We were attempting to raise $150,000 at a $1.5M valuation. That means
8 min read · Feb 7, 2015 -- I’ve spent the past year losing 80 lbs and getting in shape. A lot of people have been asking me how I did it; specifics like what diet I was on, how many times a week I wo
1 min read · Jan 5, 2016 -- As children, we have vivid imaginations. We stay up late waiting for Santa Claus, dream of becoming President, and have ideas that defy physics. Then something happens. As
Write-only interfaces. / A write-only interface. A write-only interface, which I totally just now made up, is one where the primary (and often the only action you can take) is one where you can “add” to a collection but not view what’s already in said collection. It’s an app with a compose form, but…
If I said you had idea debt, would you roll your eyes and change the subject? Or shrug because you don’t know what idea debt is in the first place? Allow me to explain. Do you have a big creative proj
So I got fired from GitHub two weeks ago. This is the tweet I wrote afterwards while walking to lunch: The last half-decade meant everything to me. Was a hell of a gig.Thanks, GitHub. — Zach Holman (@
Sponsored By I got a very earnest and well-phrased email from a young person overseas recently. Some time in my mind sounds come that Is that I am really a developer or just a good googler. I don't kn
In April of 1958, Hunter S. Thompson was 22 years old when he wrote a letter on the meaning and purpose of life when asked by his friend, Hume Logan, for advice. In just a few paragraphs, Thompson’s l
Robert Rathbun Wilson Hall, in Batavia, Illinois | Photo by Chris Smith / Flickr O ne of my favorite moments from the history of science comes from a man whose name may be hard to improve on: Robert Rathburn Wilson. In 1967, in the midst of the space race with the Soviet Union, he became the first…
A year ago today was my last day working a tech job . I think I spent the first few months in a bit of a daze. I have a bad habit of expecting worst case scenarios, so I was in a constant state of mil