Advice For Young Entrepreneurs

When young entrepreneurs ask me for advice, I generally tell them to optimize for their alumni network. Your future determinant of success will be most determined by who you are surrounded with. These people will force you to up your game. They'll be your future co-founders, they'll be your future customers, they'll be your feedback engine, they'll be your financiers, and they'll be the peer group from which you absorb, which you work with, and which you strive against.

So, I would say optimize for the alumni network. Very often, that advice will then lead you to moving towards a startup hub, working with highly technical people, working with young people, and even in universities—going to hacker clubs, going into STEM classes, and going to hacker houses and meetups and boot camps. Just optimize for who you're going to be around.

You want to be around the absolute smartest, most driven people possible. That will determine your career trajectory and your eventual outcome more than any other single factor that you haven't already considered.