Paul Buchheit: What are some things successful founders have in common?

less than 1m read

·Nov 3, 2024

So this was actually where the focused frugality obsession and love thing came from. I was actually trying to distill it down into a small enough number of words, and then I was going to try to translate it into emoji, but I failed at that part. I couldn't figure out the emoji for obsession; like love, I'm like okay, a heart.

But there is, I think, like this obsessive focus. There's almost an irrationality in some of these founders. The example that comes up as like the most insane version of it is probably like Elon Musk.

So I actually, he came into Google, gave like a Tech Talk, I want to say 2003 or something like that. And it was after he had started SpaceX, but before they had done the first rocket launch. Someone is like, what are you gonna do if the rocket explodes when you launch it? He's like, well, I have enough money for three launches, so I hope one of them succeeds.

Like he literally plowed his entire fortune; the first three blew up. I think, yeah, the first three did blow up. He managed to scrape together enough money for like a fourth rocket, but that fourth rocket hadn't gone, there would be no SpaceX, and Elon would be bankrupt.

Right? Like that's insane. I would not take all of my money and plow it into like some harebrained rocket scheme. Right? Like that's like a level of irrationality that is, I think, like wonderful.

Limits of trigonometric functions | Limits and continuity | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

The Declaration of Independence | Period 3: 1754-1800 | AP US History | Khan Academy

View All

Derivative of ln(x) | Advanced derivatives | AP Calculus AB | Khan Academy

So in this video, we’re going to think about what the derivative with respect to X of the natural log of X is. I’m going to go straight to the punch line: it is equal to 1 over X. In a future video, I’m actually going to prove this. It’s a little bit invo…

Property insurance | Insurance | Financial Literacy | Khan Academy

Let’s talk a little bit about property insurance. The first question is, why would you want to insure property? Well, for a lot of folks, their property is a lot of, uh, the most expensive things they have that would be very hard to replace if something b…

5th roots | Mathematics I | High School Math | Khan Academy

Let’s see if we can calculate the fifth root of 32. So, like always, pause the video and see if you can figure this out on your own. So, let’s just remind ourselves what a fifth root is. So, if x is equal to the fifth root of 32, that’s the same thing as…

7 Tips for Motivating Elementary School Kids During Distance Learning

Hi everyone! Thank you for joining today on our webinar on seven tips for motivating elementary school kids during distance learning. Now the tips we’ll be sharing today are tailored to this moment, but they’re really applicable more broadly as needed. I’…

Social contract - schmotial contract

People who support the state often say that everyone who lives in the territory claimed by the state has implicitly agreed to abide by the state’s rules; that by not leaving the territory, they’ve entered into a voluntary agreement. This agreement is ofte…

Terms of Trade and the Gains from Trade | AP Macroeconomics | Khan Academy

Let’s imagine a very simple world, as we tend to do in economics, that has two countries that are each capable of producing either pants or shirts, or some combination. So, what we have here are the production possibility curves for each of those countri…

Paul Buchheit: What are some things successful founders have in common?

More Articles