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Don’t Roll out the Red Carpet on the Way out the Door

Both Sides of the Table

Ryan was the most talented technologist we had hired at BuildOnline. We hired Ryan at a really young age and without a tremendous amount of prior experience. We had a strategy of hiring people really young because we couldn’t afford to hire too many senior people. I knew that meant he wouldn’t come back.

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The Case for Optimism and Risk at Startups

Both Sides of the Table

I told her that I believed America’s best asset – driven initially from software innovation mindset in the San Francisco Bay Area and media innovation driven from Los Angeles – was our willingness to accept failure. We hired outside experts. Marc Berte, the CTO, and a masters from MIT, is exceptionally gifted.

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Announcing a Deal I’ve Wanted to Talk About for a Year

Both Sides of the Table

Because I am true to the hiring practices I preach, I wanted a strong exec who would “ punch above their weightclass ” by taking a job they hadn’t yet done but would hugely aspire to and thus work harder to out perform. And we wanted a head of global marketing. As you know I believe in Lines, not Dots.

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The Power of Getting the Band Back Together

Both Sides of the Table

The truth is you really don’t know how your teammates or your bosses will perform in good times and bad. You hire people who look good on paper. So one of the surest signs you’ve hired a leader is the willingness of his or her former team to re-assemble. After 6 months – you know. You REALLY know.

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A Few Key People Really Can Make a Huge Difference

Both Sides of the Table

Your highest priority right now is hiring the 1 or 2 people that are going to join your company and make a difference. There’s you and your killer CTO co-founder. That seems likely to be dominated by a more urban startup from NYC or from San Francisco. It is possible and he’s showing people that.

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Your Guide to the Complete Lean Startup Conference Program

Startup Lessons Learned

We’ve recently added talks from: Former US CTO and current tech advisor to the White House, Todd Park; former Facebook engineering director Joceyln Goldfein; Dropbox engineering VP Aditya Agarwal; and KISSMetrics founder Hiten Shah. Platinum Passholders will spend December 8 visiting four successful San Francisco startups.

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Stories of Opportunity from the First Round Capital Key Hire Wire – VP of Sales, CTO, VP of Engineering

This is going to be BIG.

A week or so ago, we launched the Key Hire Wire at First Round. You will initially spend majority of time personally working with individual accounts and coaching sales team. CTO, Modcloth – San Francisco, CA (corrected from e-mail version) Remember that girl from back home? How do you like them apples?