Adam Leventhal

In terms of what you were saying about experience, I just feel like these reductive views of Scully versus jobs or founder mode versus management mode, Like you want founders who are thoughtful and it's sort of like also good at ignoring things. I mean, I think one of the, one of the spoke, I think briefly to this kind of notion of paralysis.

If you're like, I want to get all of these things right. It's impossible. Yes. So you need to take shorthands for some of them. Some of the shorthands are, I'm going to do it my way arbitrarily. I'm going to do it the way that it's always been done arbitrarily.

If you're like, I want to get all of these things right. It's impossible. Yes. So you need to take shorthands for some of them. Some of the shorthands are, I'm going to do it my way arbitrarily. I'm going to do it the way that it's always been done arbitrarily.

Not that either of those is correct, but then focusing on the ones that are key to your business and they're taking a blend of like what you think is right for your business, but then learning from experience.

Not that either of those is correct, but then focusing on the ones that are key to your business and they're taking a blend of like what you think is right for your business, but then learning from experience.

Absolutely. And I think, yeah, I mean the other side of it of like, this won't scale when we're 10 people, a hundred people, a thousand people. They have been in those arguments. I remember one in particular, um, where there was a cranky customer. They weren't getting the performance they wanted out of a thing we had sold them.

Absolutely. And I think, yeah, I mean the other side of it of like, this won't scale when we're 10 people, a hundred people, a thousand people. They have been in those arguments. I remember one in particular, um, where there was a cranky customer. They weren't getting the performance they wanted out of a thing we had sold them.

I'm like, well, what if we just give them enough of the thing that we sold them to meet their performance needs? Not at Oxide, by the way. Cherish customers of Oxide. To be clear. And... Also, it was a software product, so giving them twice as much was sort of fine or whatever. And someone started freaking out about revenue recognition when we're a public company.

I'm like, well, what if we just give them enough of the thing that we sold them to meet their performance needs? Not at Oxide, by the way. Cherish customers of Oxide. To be clear. And... Also, it was a software product, so giving them twice as much was sort of fine or whatever. And someone started freaking out about revenue recognition when we're a public company.

This is a company, by the way, that never went public. This is a company that got acquired 10 years after this conversation by private equity. But being able to say, yes, this doesn't scale. Yes, when we are being held to certain standards... You know, by our public investors, we can't do this. Also, it's today. And like, let's just get through the day. Right.

This is a company, by the way, that never went public. This is a company that got acquired 10 years after this conversation by private equity. But being able to say, yes, this doesn't scale. Yes, when we are being held to certain standards... You know, by our public investors, we can't do this. Also, it's today. And like, let's just get through the day. Right.

This was all totally above board.

This was all totally above board.

I remember at Delphix, I joined this company. It was like 20 people at the time. It was the first startup I'd been at. And what I found really interesting startling was the degree to which when we were hiring people, we wanted to see people who had done that exact thing like two or three times. And I sort of thought, oh, we're going to be this scrappy startup.

I remember at Delphix, I joined this company. It was like 20 people at the time. It was the first startup I'd been at. And what I found really interesting startling was the degree to which when we were hiring people, we wanted to see people who had done that exact thing like two or three times. And I sort of thought, oh, we're going to be this scrappy startup.

We're going to take chances on people. We're going to... But it was clearly not part of the risk budget to find people who were just hungry and we thought could do the thing. And I think there was some, maybe it was just where the risk budget was, and there was some strength to that thought. There are also a bunch of downsides to it.

We're going to take chances on people. We're going to... But it was clearly not part of the risk budget to find people who were just hungry and we thought could do the thing. And I think there was some, maybe it was just where the risk budget was, and there was some strength to that thought. There are also a bunch of downsides to it.

We found people who had done it before and maybe weren't hungry to do it again or had forgotten the drive that it took to do that again.

We found people who had done it before and maybe weren't hungry to do it again or had forgotten the drive that it took to do that again.

Yeah, I mean, it's a very expensive mistake. And it's a big bet. Maybe it's the right bet. But if... that person and that team and that other company match things up really well. But if it doesn't match up, if it's, if it's sort of surface level similarities, then you've just onboarded a big team and you know, it's, it's going to take a lot of money to then undo that.