Bret Taylor
speaker
184 appearances
1 recordings
1 series
first heard Oct 2024
last heard Oct 2024
Bret Taylor’s voice in public audio — every appearance, attributed to the second.
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Appearances
Well, first, why did I fundraise? I really believe in the importance of boards and having stakeholders and the accountability of having a board and investors and employees. And I want the employees coming to Sierra to know that Clay and I aren't doing this as a side hustle. We want to build a generational company. And then similarly, I really value the advice I've
been a board member as well as an executive. And I really value the strategic advice I got. So when we started the company, I just called Peter Fenton, who I've worked with twice before. He's the only person I talked to. And that was our first board member. And with our subsequent round, similarly- How long was that conversation?
Yeah, I don't want to disclose private details, but Peter and I have worked together a lot before. It probably could have been even shorter than it was, but I'm not there to, I want to talk to Peter about what we're doing and why and get his advice. So it was the right conversation because I wasn't there in a transactional capacity.
And I think that the best relationship between investors and entrepreneurs is one where you really like They're your first phone call on a strategic issue. And thankfully, I've known Peter for almost 20 years. So it was pretty clear to me, like the first person I was going to call.
Yeah.
how quickly the cost of AI will go down, largely thanks to the emergence of distillation and open source models like LAMA.
The focus on hardware and models and not enough focus on the applications of AI. I think many of the defining companies in AI will be delivering consumer and business solutions that happen to be powered by AI, not just the models themselves.
I don't stack rank these board members, but a board member that I've worked with twice is Fiji Simo. So she's the CEO of Instacart. I work with her at Shopify and she's also on the board of OpenAI. And one of those folks who's an operator who knows also how to be an effective board member and a remarkable intellect.
I don't know. I don't follow it enough.
I actually honestly don't follow that as much, not because I don't care, but I follow the companies more than the investors.
The art form as a board member is how to be involved enough without jumping into the operations of a company and knowing how to give advice in a way that the CEO and the management team actually hears. Finding that balance of creating the cadence with the companies you work with to get the information you need so you know where you're going to add value when you know when to like
call the proverbial bat phone because something's wrong is the biggest art form. So I would say, you know, board members who treat every engagement the same are probably not doing it right because different executive teams, different CEOs have will hear device advice in different ways. And the businesses are very different.
So I think really treating it very uniquely and finding an operating cadence, you can get the information you need to actually provide good advice.
Probably the most impactful, unexpected point in my career was Mark Zuckerberg making me chief technology officer of Facebook. I'm not sure I was qualified to do that job. He saw something in me and I obviously saw it in myself as well. I would say that moment kind of changed my own conception of myself from being sort of an engineer to being able to lead larger teams.
And it was largely because of Mark's faith in me.
When the movie The Social Network came out, we rented a movie theater and all watched it together. It's a fine movie, but there was this funny scene where they order appletinis, which was kind of a lame drink, let's be honest. No one orders an appletini and maintains their reputation on the other side of it. So we go out to a bar afterwards and I walk up to get a beer and the bartender's like,
What the fuck is it with you guys and appletinis? People have been ordering it all night. So after the movie, like everyone just orders appletinis. And the guy at the old pro was like, I ran out of what are the toxic looking green liqueur is. And he was like, what is it with appletinis today? So that's one of my favorites.
Ironic part of that movie is whatever the director was trying to achieve, I've met a lot of entrepreneurs who view it as a source of inspiration, which I'm not sure was the director's goal.
One of the things that I've admired the most about the leaders you mentioned, whether it's Larry and Sergey, Mark Benioff, Mark Zuckerberg, Marissa, whom I work for at Google, is this sort of relentless drive. Every time you might get comfortable with a situation, they're always looking out towards the horizon. I always found Mark Zuckerberg particularly remarkable at this.
Every time I thought I was thinking long term, whatever Mark was thinking was about 2x farther in the future than I was thinking. And it was so disconcerting and motivating for me. I think when I became chief technology officer of Facebook after they had acquired my social network, I was 29, if I'm remembering correctly. I think it was 2009.
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