Startup insights from Biz Stone, Jack Dorsey, Brian Armstrong, Jeff Bezos, and Andy Rachleff

Every Sunday, we send out 1 free insight + 4 new bonus insights for premium subscribers (upgrade to Premium for $5/mo here).

Today’s insights:

1. Twitter cofounder Biz Stone shares the most important lesson he learned in his startup career

2. Twitter founder Jack Dorsey: “The great companies have multiple founding moments”

3. Coinbase founder Brian Armstrong on the most common hiring mistakes startups make

4. Jeff Bezos shares his vision for Kindle and the future of books

5. Benchmark founder Andy Rachleff explains why he invented the “entrepreneur in residence” position

Twitter cofounder Biz Stone shares the most important lesson he learned in his startup career

“Success is not guaranteed, but failure pretty much is guaranteed if you’re not emotionally invested in what you’re working on.”

Biz believes Odeo - the podcasting company that pivoted into Twitter - failed because the team didn’t care about podcasts:

“We didn’t podcast and we didn’t listen to podcasts. But with Twitter early on, Evan had a tweet that said ‘Sipping pinot noir after a massage in Napa Valley’ and it made me laugh out loud. I had kind of an out of body experience because I was like, ‘I’m laughing out loud at something I’m working on.’ And then once I realized that, I was like, I love what I’m working on.”

This made it easier for Biz and the team to bear tremendous negativity in the first three years of Twitter:

“Everyone was saying how stupid Twitter was… And if I wasn’t emotionally invested and loving it, I would have believed everyone.”

A lot of people think they have have an idea for a startup that “other people will like”. But Biz believes this is a trap:

“I think that’s the wrong way to go. You have to love what you want to do. That’s my one piece of advice: Have an emotional investment in your work and you will be far more likely to succeed.”

Full video: Kevin Rose “Foundation 41 // Biz Stone“ (Oct 2014)

Twitter founder Jack Dorsey: “The great companies have multiple founding moments”

“We talk a lot about founders. We talk a lot about founding moments, and we put so much emphasis on the founding moment of a company… These are the rockstars in the organizations. This is what everyone wants to be, and I think that’s actually not reality. The great companies don’t have just one founding moment. They have multiple founding moments.”

He gives the United States as an example. Abraham Lincoln wasn’t one of the original founding fathers, but he completely changed how everyone thought about living in America.

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