⁠Startup Archive
RT @dsiroker: I am starting to like the taste of my own blood

Marc Andreessen: Every innovator “eventually starts to like the taste of their own blood”

“Once something works, the stories get retconned and adapted to say ‘it was inevitable all along’, ‘everybody always knew this was a good idea’. The person has won all these awards and society embraces them. But invariably, if you were with them when they were actually doing the work—or you get a couple of drinks into them and talk about it, they’ll be like: ‘no, that’s not how it happened at all.’”

Marc continues:

“They faced a wall of skepticism—basically a wall of social denial: ‘no, this is not going to work’, ‘no, I’m not going to join your lab’, ‘no, I’m not going to come work for your company’, ‘no, I’m not going to buy your product’, ‘no, I’m not going to meet with you.’”

All entrepreneurs, Marc says, get tremendous social resistance with very little positive feedback from your peers. And successful innovators “need to be able to deal with social discomfort to the level of ostracism, or at some point, they’re just going to get shaken out and quit.”

When asked how these people deal with it, Marc responds with the famous line from Sean Parker:

“Being an entrepreneur is like getting punched in the face over and over again. Eventually you start to like the taste of your own blood.”

Marc likes this line because it gives you a sense of how painful the process actually is:

“If you talk to any entrepreneur who has been through it, they’re like ‘oh yeah’, that’s exactly what it’s like… If you’re just getting universally negative responses, very few people have the ego strength to survive that for years.”

And argues that there’s a huge advantage to clustering:

“Throughout history you’ve had this clustering effect. You had clustering of the great artists and sculptors in Renaissance Florence. You had the clustering of the philosophers of Greece. You have the clustering of tech people in Silicon Valley. You have the clustering of the creative arts—movie and TV people—in Los Angeles. And so forth. There’s always a scene and a nexus where people come together.”

Having said that, clustering does have downsides:

“You put any group of people together and you do start to get group think—even among people who are very disagreeable.”

Video source: @hubermanlab (2023) - Startup Archive
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⁠Quiver Quantitative
JUST IN: The Supreme Court has signaled that is is likely to uphold the US TikTok ban.

Facebook, $META, spent $5.9M on lobbying last quarter.

They are on pace to shatter their record for annual lobbying spending.

We will receive Q4 data later this month: https://t.co/c1uFZxF9AG
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⁠InsideArbitrage
The InsideArbitrage Friday Wrap is out!

"U.S. Steel Sues CEO of Cleveland-Cliffs"

👉Full Article link in the final tweet.

🧵1/10 https://t.co/ZgB9f51WIP
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Baron Fifth Avenue Growth Fund on Samsara $IOT US

Thesis: Samsara Inc. is a rapidly growing cloud software provider in the telematics industry, helping companies enhance operational efficiency through data analysis and AI across commercial vehicles and industrial assets.

(Extract from their Q3 letter)
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⁠Investing visuals
2025 is lining up to be the turnaround year for $ASML's revenue & free cash flow growth.

With that in mind, $ASML is attractively priced right now👌 https://t.co/eA6lCP3IaM
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⁠Stock Analysis Compilation
Bell AM on IDEXX Laboratories $IDXX US

Thesis: IDEXX Laboratories is being re-invested in due to attractive valuations following prior significant underperformance in the market.

(Extract from their November letter) https://t.co/Wq45w9ovbm
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⁠Quiver Quantitative
Nancy Pelosi has lost $2.8M in the stock market today, per our estimates: https://t.co/RL8Oum6qFi
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⁠Hidden Value Gems
A really nice piece by @vitaliyk

https://t.co/zRq4B6dI6u
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⁠Startup Archive
RT @corbtt: When I worked at @ycombinator I'd make a point of chatting with very successful founders and getting the "real" backstory, not the polished PR one. There were always big mistakes, self-doubt, long periods lost in the wilderness. Success is only inevitable in retrospect.

Marc Andreessen: Every innovator “eventually starts to like the taste of their own blood”

“Once something works, the stories get retconned and adapted to say ‘it was inevitable all along’, ‘everybody always knew this was a good idea’. The person has won all these awards and society embraces them. But invariably, if you were with them when they were actually doing the work—or you get a couple of drinks into them and talk about it, they’ll be like: ‘no, that’s not how it happened at all.’”

Marc continues:

“They faced a wall of skepticism—basically a wall of social denial: ‘no, this is not going to work’, ‘no, I’m not going to join your lab’, ‘no, I’m not going to come work for your company’, ‘no, I’m not going to buy your product’, ‘no, I’m not going to meet with you.’”

All entrepreneurs, Marc says, get tremendous social resistance with very little positive feedback from your peers. And successful innovators “need to be able to deal with social discomfort to the level of ostracism, or at some point, they’re just going to get shaken out and quit.”

When asked how these people deal with it, Marc responds with the famous line from Sean Parker:

“Being an entrepreneur is like getting punched in the face over and over again. Eventually you start to like the taste of your own blood.”

Marc likes this line because it gives you a sense of how painful the process actually is:

“If you talk to any entrepreneur who has been through it, they’re like ‘oh yeah’, that’s exactly what it’s like… If you’re just getting universally negative responses, very few people have the ego strength to survive that for years.”

And argues that there’s a huge advantage to clustering:

“Throughout history you’ve had this clustering effect. You had clustering of the great artists and sculptors in Renaissance Florence. You had the clustering of the philosophers of Greece. You have the clustering of tech people in Silicon Valley. You have the clustering of the creative arts—movie and TV people—in Los Angeles. And so forth. There’s always a scene and a nexus where people come together.”

Having said that, clustering does have downsides:

“You put any group of people together and you do start to get group think—even among people who are very disagreeable.”

Video source: @hubermanlab (2023) - Startup Archive
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⁠Startup Archive
RT @withmattkim: Every week, this newsletter shares timeless writing from startup founders:

- 10 Passages from Jeff Bezos’s Shareholder Letters
- The Struggle by Ben Horowitz
- How to hire the best people you’ve ever worked with by Marc Andreessen

Highly recommend @foundertribune . https://t.co/gnr92F9uHG
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