John Doerr: Ideas are easy, execution is everything.

it's really a privilege to be here what I'd like is for the next hour to be you this won't be your grandfather's usual lecture and the way I'd like to organize our time is to learn a little bit about you and to get questions of yours on this whiteboard and then I'll try to address some of those and then we'll have time for more questions at the end of it so first of all show hands please how many of us are engineers okay and for those who are not engineers how many would you say are technical right and how many of you expect that you'll work at a startup company how many of you dream of starting a startup company and being entrepreneurs yeah and how many of you are just not interested in any of those topics whatsoever someone in the very back so here's the grid the whiteboard and I put some categories up and some of you pose questions to me already we'll take about five minutes to put new ones up here we could talk about your career in leadership we can talk about startups and entrepreneurship TN BT anybody know what that is that's stant yep the next big thing we can talk about the next big thing venture capital and kleiner perkins which is the largely the work I'm doing policy and politics very interested in good government and policy personal questions there were a number of those like what brought me to the valley or how do you define success education healthcare or any of those topics and I'd be very happy to offer you some hot stock tips before they before they happen is over so here's what we're going to do for the next few minutes if you'll put your hand in the air tell me your name and the program you're in and either a topic or question my name is Goga studies and policy of all computer science yeah my question is he said your advisor told you you know the most important field would be the combination of biology and technology how do you value a different feels like that one and say now ecology or say koala yeah okay so I'm gonna put that under venture capital and how evaluate new fields another question please yes just hear about a sharing economy as you pop policies around okay so we'll put that under a policy and politics for the sharing economy the kind of uber wars that are going on right now is old institutions are challenged by new ones compared to what thirty years ago okay so I'm gonna put that under personal though it affects a lot of these and its women in tech another question and I was kind of wondering on top of the first guys question so when you do find an emerging market or an interesting industry that is extremely technical and you don't know anything about it how do you kind of catch up to speed and hold your own in a conversation with someone with that technical background okay I'm gonna put that under personal which is how learn is that all right what I'm a part of my personal tips I was wondering the stages of women in the startup industry and what do you think about how considered women founders I'm creating a whole diversity category now you've invest a lot and some great startups what would you think what would you consider that with different when you were investing those versus some of the other investments you made what's the difference between a great startup and I know well I got invested before you before they became success or it was clear Google would be accessible yeah what did what did you see I want to put that under venture capital so can I call that how tell how you tell or what you see in a Google or an Amazon or the next big thing it's a really important question as questions for the education portion I know that KB Seavey's investors in Coursera it's kind of curious how you think Coursera matches up with other educational technology companies like to you and what you think that space is going for the future great question so how about Coursera and MOOCs in the overall opportunity there hi I'm Daniel I'm a computer science major and a public policy minor I was wondering what you see for the future of US companies Facebook Google breaking into the Chinese market hmm I'm going to put that up here in a new category get rid of hot stock tips global Google and others in China hi my name is Rohan could you talk about three of your favorite books or big ideas that have kind of shaped your approach to like problem solving in your perspective all right three favorite books for problem solving I love books books for my friends yeah hi my name is Anna a business major and I was heard as from Jackman he said when he first came to this valley to raise money nobody wanted to talk to him but last year they just became the largest IPO in the United States so wondering how do VC's evaluate for instalove and when they come here for fundraising yep we'll call it US or Western pcs in China said right what's wrong what's going on there yes hi I'm Daniel I'm studying computer science under policy and politics self-driving cars where you see that going yeah just a bird's-eye view let's do two more questions and then I'll try to tackle some of these hi my name is Wei and I'm a business major so I was wondering what do you think about virtual reality where is it going yeah it's up here already so I want to talk about it has one of the next big things virtual and augmented reality is a question last question please yep hi my name is - all I'm the CS major and I was wondering what you think the importance of getting advanced degree is on moving on up in business and maybe pursuing a startup and what kind of advanced degree of some sort of graduate degree a master's PhD MBA dance degree before moving on so I'm going to pick off a few of these categories talk about them really briefly then I've got some an overall framework I'd love to share with you and then we can do some more questions these are great by the way I want to start here with the kind of next big thing somebody asked me the question John you were really outspoken proponent of investing in green technologies in fact you said something like it's the largest economic opportunity the 21st century were you wrong what do you think about this right now and my my view of this is it remains an enormous opportunity the planet spends about six trillion dollars every year on energy in energy based systems and I'm of the conviction that the path were on is not sustainable we cannot continue to put 120 million tons of co2 in the atmosphere every day like it's some kind of free open sewer and the consequence of that is exactly what we're seeing today which I'd like to call global weirding it's not global warming it's global weirding as we have extremes and weather all over our country all over the world the people that will pay the highest price for this social ungood are going to be probably Africans where it's likely that 100 million of them will starve because they can't grow crops and I think that the engineer and me tells me not the data but the engineer says this is a problem you know that's the integral of all the co2 we put in the atmosphere and and we're probably well down down the path to irreversible and catastrophic climate crisis that means it affects a whole range of topics that are on this board policy innovation technology entrepreneurship they can all make the difference and I'm quite taken by the a statement of Amory Lovins who runs the Rocky Mountain Institute and my partner Al Gore agrees on this we have exactly as much time as we need to solve the problem I find that a very hopeful declaration of what needs to be done there in the meantime I want to confess that I've made in my partners mistakes in this area of green technology I think we invested too much we invested too fast in arguably there have not been really dramatic innovations to change this carbon equation to change the carbon equation a couple of the best that we've backed is a company called Opower it's eliminated the energy production of carbon equal to the City of Boston already just by changing human behavior another very successful investment in this field is nest with the distributed thermometers I think you can argue that Tesla is not having any effect on the climate though it's at the vanguard of of electrification of Transportation which is a very large trend and fortunately that's innovation is happening in the area and I believe the rumors about Apple building a car are in fact true for reasons we may get into later on this conversation so I think this is a very exciting field its capital intensive it takes longer to bring a product to market and so I'd be very thoughtful about what part of green you go into if you choose that field Green is not a sector it's a spectrum and included in that spectrum are some places where entrepreneurs can make a big difference in some places where entrepreneurs are likely to fail and if you're interested in those fields I'd love to continue a conversation with you on on email I think the totally disruptive technology that's going to be the game changer in this field will be disruptive radically better batteries better batteries if you look at improvement in energy storage over the last couple of decades it's been about 2% per year and I've had the privilege now of backing for entrepreneurs in four different battery companies one of which has demonstrated now and I have in my hand on Friday a better than lithium-ion cell with 250 percent of the energy today of the best other batteries those of you who even have a the basic understanding that I do of batteries will know that all batteries cost whatever they weigh so if we have 250 percent the energy density that means it's going to cost 40 percent of what it would have otherwise it can pack 40 percent more power for a given weight and if you apply it to a vehicle like an automobile that means a Tesla will go 750 miles or more importantly the most important part of a Tesla which is that battery drivetrain can be dramatically lower in cost let me boil it all down to the final benefit if this innovation works in it to Bay Area innovation not only will it be possible but we will build electric vehicles that cost no more than internal combustion vehicles and we can when we move the global transportation fleet off fossil fuels to renewables for example that's going to have a huge rapid relatively rapid scalable effect on the carbon admissions but I believe it's the case today we have all the technology we need to deal with this this policy problem another question was so what are other innovative new green new areas that you're excited about and I'll tell you the one that I'm spending the most time right now is on digital health we'll hear more about that later we backed the folks at magic leap that are building an amazing augmented reality display system one that actually understands the physics of how the eye focuses so that it doesn't try to project onto an oculus like flat-screen the simulation of 3d which generally will give you a headache and some people think will cause neurological damage so you want to stay very tuned for the innovation coming from magic leap later this year the big deal right now with all the venture capitalists are still excited about is so Lomo that's social local and mobile innovations in and around these amazing smartphone devices which has propelled Apple into being the most valuable company in the world as an example of that innovation you have on the local front a company like uber which right now is generating four times the revenues in San Francisco of the entire entire taxi industry combined so they're very clearly changing behavior by providing on-demand transportation these local on-demand services whether it's an uber or an insta cart or a ship are really profound think of this smartphone as your remote controller for the world your remote controller for the world and so what it will be able to do for healthcare and for education is I think as yet unappreciated what else did I put up here new media drones precision agriculture oh this is security I think there's only two kinds of institutions today those that have been hacked and know it and those that have been hacked and don't in this arms race the work that we need to do to protect defend our increasingly vital infrastructure and systems that depend on on the very insecure world wide web is is substantial ok so that's a quick tour of some and may I say one more thing no matter what my views are and my partner's we are like open for the best ideas every day we don't presume to be smarter than entrepreneurs and and and I'm delighted and surprised every day when we get new proposals that literally blow our minds why don't we go over to venture capital for just a moment and tackle some of your questions how do you tell the difference between an absolutely extraordinary venture and kind of an average one that may do well and may not make it and we look back on the investments we made and found there are five key factors that distinguish the Amazons and the googles from the rest of the pack in the first is technical excellent the second is outstanding founders and management the third is strategic focus on a large new market or unserved market the fourth is up is execution that is speed how fast you execute and the fifth and final one is reasonable financings reasonable financings and for those of you who are taking notes I think that's a really smart thing to do but I'm going to tell you at the end of this talk the way that you can get the notes from this conversation so five factors technical excellence why it's not for published papers and PhDs it's so you can attract the absolutely most amazing talent to your organization because if you have a technical people other a technical people want to work with them second outstanding management and founders I deeply believe in founder led companies the difference between an Amazon or Google or a trade Z for example that are run by Jeff Bezos and Larry Page and in Tracy DiNunzio is it is remarkable and I'm not saying that all founders can always scale with their businesses the really smart founders if they know they can will get a CEO o or even bring in a CEO for a while and then sometimes go back and run their companies but that commitment to have outstanding management is what's going to allow us to execute execute because execution at speed is everything Thomas Edison said innovation without execution is a hallucination so your ability to execute matters enormous Lee I think large markets and strategic focus on those is is pretty obvious the last thing I'll say about these factors is I've seen Ventures raise too much money as well as too little and you want when you run out of money it's over so you always want to have maybe a cushion greater than what your plan is but the way to make a lot of money building in a venture if that's your number one goal is not by cutting a tough deal with an investor or a venture capitalist so by being ruthlessly intellectually honest about what the risk is in your venture and then tell you what let's get that risk upfront and removed maybe can you get the product to work it may be can you close that strategic partner that very large entity that's got all the data you need but if you focus on that then clearly after that your venture is going to be more valuable and if you need to you can raise more money these we call or staged financing how do you evaluate new fields is what it says I got to tell you I just try to hang around the smartest people that I can and so I built a network of advisers whether it's you know build build joy in the future computing or who would be another good example of that Larry Larry Page younger innovators in in their 30s Dylan field who's a teal fellow who dropped out so I love innovation I worship at the altar of innovators I hang around universities every Wednesday night I have about eight eight college students mostly from Stanford over over to our home for dinner and then I read like crazy I subscribed to six yeah old fashioned print newspapers Atlanta on the front door about thirty five magazines one of my favorites is the MIT Technology Review now there is the Economist and then I read stuff on the web like crazy one of the important things I do when I'm trying to learn about a new field and right now I'm really passionate about health and digital health is I go to entrepreneurs and say what should I read what should i watch and so I try to plow through about a book a week and then and then I'll invite the innovators in the field like that it's amazing what people would do if you just call them up on the phone I ask them if they're going to be in the Bay Area and go have breakfast with them or lunch something of that sort I wish I had the time to go back to university to take courses I've kind of grazed on the Coursera courses some of them anyway and then I kind of blunder my way through these fields because I don't really have to be expert in them I just need to have some sense of taste and rely on the entrepreneurs to be the thought leaders and the innovators okay what are the qualities that matter in entrepreneurs this is a pattern-matching thing it's like when you meet Jeff Bezos you just know that you want to be in trouble with them Jeff was a you know computer scientist from Princeton exceedingly bright and I remember walking into his offices in a very seedy part of Seattle in fact the free needle clinic was right across the street from his offices and Jeff came bounding down from the loft in this place where they were distributing the books with a laugh that only could barely be described as a left it was more like a honk and and at that moment from the intensity in his eyes and the way he talked I knew there was a kind of personal bond that meant I wouldn't mind being in trouble with Jeff and one thing I'm pretty sure about is any of the entrepreneurs that I get to work with who are going to do something world-changing we are going to get in trouble we were going to get in trouble so the goal then in working with him is try to make new mistakes not repeat the same old ones and that was a - Larry Page that was true the son founders it was true of a stealth entrepreneur that I can't really tell you about right now but it's it's a great joy I think the privilege and the work that I do is that I get to kind of be off to the side and support entrepreneurs who are going to change the world big time so that covers pretty much a venture capital and kleiner perkins we got that done we got the next big things done startups and entrepreneurs how do you mentor entrepreneurs or what kind of mentoring do you provide well I touched on it I think there's a whole set of mistakes scar-tissue not really wisdom but scar tissue from mistakes that others and I have made that we don't have to repeat but we're going to get in trouble so the goal is to make new mistakes right the I try to be online rapid in response and then bring some sort of simple scalable system to a company so they can be even better I strongly recommend that entrepreneurs get a coach I'll try to fill in do that job but there's also a network of professional coaches that make a big difference I'm going to tell you a story about a UC Berkeley grad Eric Schmidt who we recruited to come work with Larry and Sergey when they were building Google and not long after Eric arrived I said Eric I think you ought to get a coach and he was really offended by this suggestion I said well I've got this coach I want to recommend to you he's actually formerly a coach he's the football coach Columbia University kind of the legendary Bill Campbell and and so Eric said yeah and he met with Campbell and years later he said it was the best piece of advice he'd ever gotten because coach Campbell who had been a CEO before and it coached a team before became his co-pilot in building the Google company with Larry and with Sergey and I think him spent time with Larry Page today he would say the same thing about Bill what does a great coach do a great coach gets totally aligned with you they've gotten your back they're working with you to build the company they might join you in a staff meeting they're going to privately give you constructive critical feedback that's one of the rarest things to get in a business setting it's constructive critical feedback and a an extraordinary coach will also work with your teammates so I got to tell you when Bill Campbell walks into a room and he attends all the Monday's staff meetings at Google everybody just lights up you know they want to be hugged by this big burly foul-mouthed cussing coach from Columbia University that is there doesn't make the decisions doesn't run the company but helps the process help the process so I'll go quickly we're doing pretty well here you know what I'd like to do now if it's all right with you is I like to share with you a framework for career decisions you might make and a property equality I think you really ought to look for when you're thinking about either starting your own company or the kind of company you might want to join so without further ado I'm going to move okay I think when you're selecting what you're going to do next your top priority ought to be learning and growing not making a lot of money learning and growing and I strongly encourage you to build a strong foundation of experiences and if you're going to be the CEO and a founder of a company I think you should learn how to sell you really ought to learn how to get orders if you don't find customers and customers are going to pay for what you're doing you're going to fail you don't need to learn that in a startup you can learn that on somebody else's nickel you also ought to learn something about management leading a team of at least a dozen or so employees and then whatever the stage of your development I think it's really important to always network to develop personal and lifelong networks to have the confidence to cold-call anybody that matters to you I remember when I was looking for my first job in Silicon Valley I made a point of interviewing with 35 companies I didn't care what my grades were I wanted to talk to Hill at Packard and talk to Intel talk to Fairchild and talk to Oracle and make those networks stay alive these are like not LinkedIn networks they're not social networks their personal networks and if you're uncomfortable at networking get outside your comfort zone learn how to do that really well if you're uncomfortable with public speaking get really good at public speaking I think people are judged by their ability to think and speak on their feet more than any other skill I do think it's a great thing too if you're lucky enough to find and try to sustain a couple of mentors and then pick your spot try to get in on the ground floor of a company that could be enormous for a couple reasons one those companies tend to attract really good people you're going to learn more from and second when the organization grows really rapidly you're going to be pulled right along because the organization trusts you trust you and to get ahead you don't have to elbow somebody else out of the way in 1974 that was in telling in 2001 it's Google we can talk about where that might be I think it's important to be very choice 'fl about your field it's easier to change where you work the company than it is to move out of one field into another if you're passionate about health care great choose that as a field if you're passionate about media that's another kind of field I do think you ought to swing for the fences join us start up or start up your own company when the time is right but I deeply believe you have a lot of time in which to do that yeah we're all short of time but if you can learn a lot about growing companies from uber or if you square it whatever it is I think you'll you'll move faster further and here's why I think your ambition ought to be to be a leader to be a leader why because ideas are relatively speaking easy it's teams that make stuff happen and you want to lead in a culture that's going to inspire others that's going to put the mission ahead of their own personal interest and having spent some time in Silicon Valley now I've observed a real range of values values in these companies from the missionaries to the mercenary what do I mean by that My partner Randy Komisar wrote a great book and I'm going to suggest you get the book the monk in the riddle it's the story of Lennie who's an entrepreneur and he starts a venture called funerals dot-com where he intends to sell caskets and other paraphernalia associated with a death and that sure doesn't go very well and the employees aren't motivated and he has a mentor that mentor actually is Randy and Randy advises him to rethink his mission in the value instead of selling caskets what have we focused on building a community of the bereaved and we allowed them to share their experiences and and then if they want these other things at that time that's great and so they shifted they pivoted the company and it actually really worked it worked very well he talks Randy about the difference between a missionary and a mercenary and I want to say that you can find missionaries and mercenaries in all the companies that are in Silicon Valley and in all organizations and while I have a preference I don't want to be too judgmental here because most realities are somewhere along this continuum it was Andy Grove at Intel who coined the phrase everybody heard only the paranoid survive well I'd love to argue with Andy about this because paranoia is actually a disease state right and if instead of being driven by paranoia you can be drawn into an opportunity by passion well that's another force and maybe a longer more durable line the mercenaries tend to be more opportunistic and they're focused on the pitch in the deal whereas the missionaries are more strategic they're interested in kind of the big idea and how you form a partnership mercenaries are spreading for the short run and obsessing on competition missionaries understand that their mission is actually a marathon and they're in it for the long run they obsess on customers not on competitors delighting customers in mercenary organizations you may have an aristocracy of founders if you're the founder of a company you ought to pay close attention be really attuned to how you affect others because in an aristocracy you could shut down the best ideas and what you want to do is be in a conversation be in a debate in a discussion and get the all the best ideas on the table and let the best idea win otherwise you're going to be limited to your own vision in your own thinking mercenary cultures are interested in financial statements the missionaries in the value statements in a mercenary culture you're more of a loner you're on your own there's not mentoring and coaching this is important for where you choose to build your career are you going to be mentored are you going to be coached is it a culture that emphasizes that in a mercenary culture there's kind of an attitude of entitlement as opposed to a sense that everybody should contribute and so they're working on it's an insurance term the deferred life plan I'm going to put off living in order to make this business succeed as a to trying to strike a balance so you can have a whole life the whole life that really works the bottom line of all this is it's the difference between a lust for just making money or a lust for making meaning and money when I meet an entrepreneur who tells me they're not interested in making money I'm kind of asking myself are they really telling me the truth and and there are some who are there are some who are but I think if you have the privilege of being not just successful but doing work that's successful insignificant I think that will lead to a good life a good life well led ideas are easy I worship at the altar ideas I love innovation I bet everybody in the room here does but I've seen so many disruptive ideas where there's not been execution the team doesn't get it done that it causes me to admire the innovators who can also lead who can assemble recruit hiring motivate a great team so that's the framework that I've found across ventures and I encourage you when you're interviewing at a company they're thinking about what you're going to do next to look for leaders look for values look for culture find find ventures that matter what if we put some more questions up here on the board now hi I'm Sandia I'm in bioengineering and I wanted to know your take on health care and venture capitalists and if they really consider FDA approval as a big hurdle this is a great topic I'm really interested in so I'm just going to put it up here and read healthcare and VC including but not limited to the FDA okay couple more my question is that in the past did you miss out on identification of any of these big ideas and did not invest in those big companies that you regret right now oh yeah well there's two things I could confess to you one is my most famous failures but the biggest problems are the acts of omission you know big opportunity to mean this I'll try to get to those getting back to the career aspects that you were talking about especially early on internships our first job is it worth trying to get those big names on our resume to kind of like establish ourselves or because if you go straight into startups I think a lot of times with internships the connotation can be you couldn't get the big name okay how can we get in touch with you so my email address is Jade or at K PCB dot-com and you can send me mail and if you would like a copy of those slides or a photo of this whiteboard if you will send me the names of your three favored books that sort of changed your life or otherwise that you just think I ought to read then I'll send you mine that's the deal so that's how to get ahold of me so you said that it's important to keep your networks alive and to create a network can you explain how you do that how do i network sure I know you talked about earlier your criteria for what you look for in a successful startup can you give us an example or a couple or a pattern where you've seen startup that it's all those criteria perfectly and then for whatever reason down the road fails can I give you an example of that I think you ought to be able to come up with one so it's a I'm going to put that under startups that meet the criteria but still fail yeah all right so I want to do these for a while and then maybe we'll wrap up and cover some more topics later on with respect to education I think the education market globally as being divided into two and I'm informed by the u.s. education system but not confined to that and I think there's the elementary public education system in the US which is fail it's killing our kids 20% of the kids in American schools don't learn to read they don't learn to manipulate symbols that's code word for algebra they don't learn how to express themselves you don't read you can't really write you can't program you can't create with art and that's a national tragedy and it's intolerable and I've worked in the field of ed reform for a couple of decades making only minimal progress and pretty much gave up on it until I had the extraordinary privilege and luck of through my wife in meeting Saul Khan who with Khan Academy and the new technologies finally brought 10 million students a month into a remarkable curriculum and university that basically has a faculty of one so there's a certain scale now that's possible and more important than the scale you don't have to work through the system you don't have to get approval from a district or a union or even a school administrator to get there the other thing that's happening in education that I think is pretty exciting is these smart phones while no one was looking 70% of the teenagers in America walked into the classroom with the device that connects them to the Internet and so ventures that take advantage of that whether it's messaging or content or quizzes like Quizlet they're they're really going through the roof higher education is a great national treasure yes is leading there despite some of the archaic tenure base systems and the pressure that there are on these institutions globally we know that education higher education taught costs too much and it's not available to enough people so I had the privilege of backing of Berkeley alum Andrew Inge I happened to be taking his machine learning course 120,000 people signed up for it and suddenly he was a rock star he walked down University Avenue and people would say Andrew how are you I mean that's that's more people than he'd teach in his lifetime in one course several times over so I think these MOOCs are not going to replace the physical universities and indeed if you look at Coursera two-thirds of their students are outside the u.s. 60% of them are not enrolled in any kind of formal undergraduate program and they're just getting started so I think this whole area is pretty exciting but it's going to take a long time because fundamentally it's the second largest most screwed up part of the American economy the teachers the parents and the students are not linked in any rational economic system well that begs the question John what is the most screwed up part of the American economy who thinks yeah health care any other answers no it's health care why is that it's because same thing the patient's the providers and the payers are not linked in any rational economic system who knows how much it really costs to have their last health care procedure an independent of what it costs who knows how much you paid for it who knows how to measure whether or not that work health care in the United States is a three trillion dollar industry I just want to put that in context you know excited we are about Facebook and Google and Twitter and all these ad based online systems online advertising globally is about a 250 billion dollar industry it's less than 1/10 the size of just health care in the US he took US health care and made a country out of it it'd be the fifth largest country in the world just our health care the only bigger countries would be the u.s. itself of course Germany Japan China and then there's u.s. health care bigger than all of France all of the gross domestic product of France of 66 million people is less than three trillion dollars and we know a third of its wasted a trillion dollars is unnecessary it's over utilization it's mistakes and errors u.s. doesn't have demonstrably better health care than in other countries and so this is this is a system that's well positioned for improvement and the really exciting thing about where we are right now in time this moment in time is the combination of data big data innovation changes that are possible due to the Affordable Care Act entrepreneurs there's an entrepreneur here in the audience who's launched a stealth company there's going to I believe transform the healthcare industry these forces are coming together in a way that if I was building my career right now I think I'd major in computer science and big data and go to work for a company in this field because this is valuable work when people lose their health care insurance or people they love they die or they go bankrupt or they get divorced or it cuts very very deep and so health care health care innovation you asked the question about the FDA and the FDA has improved its act slowly during the Obama administration but you know fundamentally they were using procedures to approve clinical trials that didn't exploit the targeting in the personalization of gene based therapies they're gradually making changes in that part of the system so let's see we touch education online we touch healthcare global how do Western companies succeed in China I don't know there's very few examples of it there's a strong commitment on the part of the Chinese government to foster and encourage national winners there's a law that's been fast-tracked for both the second and third reading next month in the middle of March that would require any provider of innovation or work technologies to host all the data on the Chinese citizens on their ground to provide a front door not a back door of access to those to provide their source code data and this has been put forth not by the Ministry of of information but by the national security agencies and I believe if past if fast-tracked it would cost companies like Apple to leave China and that would be an extraordinary change this is not in the interest of the Chinese people but it's a it's a very difficult place to do business I think if you're going to succeed in China the way LinkedIn has the way Evernote has its you're required to partner with local national champions and of course pretty famously Google says we won't tolerate their censorship we won't be part of it we're going to pull out of the out of the country how many here think that was a good decision how many think it was a terrible decision yeah and how many of us don't really know we don't have the data to decide yeah tough call largest market in the world maybe being there we'll move it towards democracy but maybe not I haven't talked about women in technology I'm the proud father of two adopted daughters and the tech industry is terrible with respect to women and you know how in a time when we can't get enough technical talent we haven't figured out how to address this problem I don't know I talked to John Hennessy the president of Stanford about it and I said why aren't there more women who stay the course right through CS he says look they look at the work that's done in CS the exercises the use of talents and this is just crummy you know you're programming in a solitary environment you're not leveraging your leadership or your ability to connect with and motivate others and so I think it's a combination of the curriculum I think it's the role models it's a lack of mentoring and and this is this is a national waste the venture capitalist industry is even worse than than the tech industry per se the average number of females in the venture industry is 4% what kind of message do you think that sends to female entrepreneurs I'm proud my own partnership has 20% of our general partners and investing professionals as female in therefore first of all we make better decisions and second of all I think we're more attractive to female founders which I I want to back I want to be part of their innovations in changing the world as much as anyone elses this is a problem we're finally starting to talk about it I hope we do something about it I hope we get results fast oh the resume question names burnishing your resume internship I go for substance over resume but I wouldn't even an intern at Google and somebody looks that you've been at Google that's going to move you higher up in well it's a great place to network it's a well respected technical company and that applies to a number of other companies as well it's just kind of the truth and that's what I'm sticking with how do I keep my networks alive it's a network you got to communicate and you got to be choice 'fl about who you want to communicate with it be clear about what you want to do and hopefully have some fun while you're doing it as well I do like to say there's always extra points for humor so communicate like crazy use the social networks use the professional networks live live life to the crazy fullest as you possibly can I'll tell you what I've run a little over time now it's it's 6:05 I think what we're going to do is close with four more questions and if anybody wants to leave right now you certainly can yep we get a mic there can you talk a little bit more about the sharing economy and which company is your thing you're really hot in the area yes especially wish which is sub vertical should we be looking into sharing economy love to do that let's get three more questions up here what do you think about social entrepreneurship and this new fascination with impact social entrepreneurs love them love to talk briefly about ok two more um hi I'm Lucas I'm a mechanical engineering student and I would like to see what you think about companies like SpaceX and like space exploration space last question hi I'm ash I'm a political science student um a senior and I was wondering you mentioned that the industry average in VC firms is at 4% of women if you're a woman and you're hoping to break into the VC industry what would you suggest a woman do women in DC my advice here applies to women and men in VC and I think if you want you cannot buy the right to be on a board of directors you do not buy the right to advise entrepreneurs you got to earn that right you better earn it by virtue of experience maybe you'll be extremely lucky but my advice is go be a successful entrepreneur figure out how hard it really is to raise money to make a payroll to fire one your co-founders to inspire a team to grow an organization how about how hard it is to manage through managers and managers when you don't know the names of everybody that's in your company you figure out how to do those things and you will be highly sought after by venture firms by venture firms because that's the real deal venture capital is a service industry and so my partners and I while we've started companies we're not confused about what our role is we do not run these companies we're there to serve the entrepreneurs to provide them with the best advice that we can when they want it and sometimes when they don't and then to back them to help accelerate their vision and after all the reason we invested is their vision much better than ours I don't think there's anything wrong with hanging around venture firms like getting a summer internship there or getting a sense of it go to companies that have been backed by good VC firms if that matters to you but for the most part when I first came to Silicon Valley I thought I wanted to intern at and work at a venture firm why because I heard they had something to do with starting companies and the advice I got was d'Or forget it actually no VC firms would hire me they said go get a job at a real tech company and there was this little chip company getting started called Intel and that's what I did I'm one of the luckiest people in the world it worked out really well resumes internships how I network sharing economy I just made a commitment to an amazing company well we're big investors in uber and that's looking good so far I think that's going to work out but there's a lot of interest in food right now how many people use Sprigg ever not so many people can you buddy use Montreat here yeah more mantri by a factor of six to one I'm gonna go see Spring tonight mantri on Thursday this week so did I miss one more question no social entrepreneurship regardless of the field here's the definition of entrepreneurs entrepreneurs do more than anyone thinks possible with less than anyone thinks possible that's the amazing thing they do more than anyone thinks possible with less than anyone thinks possible and that can be in a Silicon Valley VC startup that can be in a non-profit like a hospital that can be Muhammad Yunus in creating micro loans that can be bottle in the red organization in raising the global fund to bring anti retrovirals to an AZ t2 largely women in Africa with AIDS there's great work to be done for social entrepreneurs and a lot of ways that's harder it's hard to recruit great people to entrepreneurial organization but both the satisfaction and the impact of the work the degree to which it changes the world certainly can be greater than your next incremental photo web sharing site that too many people are pursuing you asked about my three favorite books for problem solving I told you how to find out about those that's just send me your three and then there was a question finally here of how about ventures that kind of met those criteria but in the end didn't win and I think the reason is they got sometimes they were too early so Friendster and MySpace they were too early but other times primarily they don't execute ideas are easy executions everything it takes a team to win so did each of you there's never been a better time than now to build an entrepreneur of the career there's never been a better time now to start a venture and I did say go join a big company but if you're the next Mark Zuckerberg I'd like to see you right after this meeting thank you very much you

Channel: Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers

Views: 177,215

Rating: 4.920886 out of 5

Keywords: Venture Capital (Industry), John Doerr, UC Berkeley College Of Engineering (College/University), UC Berkeley College Of Environmental Design (College/University), University Of California Berkeley (College/University), Entrepreneurship (Field Of Study), Engineering (Industry), Lecture (Type Of Public Presentation), Kleiner Perkins Caufield And Byers (Venture Investor), Silicon Valley (Region), Startup Company (Website Category)

Id: 4xWGSUZmkIc

Length: 50min 14sec (3014 seconds)

Published: Wed Mar 04 2015