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

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·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.

David Rusenko at Startup School 2012

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

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