Jean Luo

And so I think it's really easy for folks to forget that the defining characteristic of all these incredible entrepreneurs is actually that their pain tolerance was incredibly high.

I mean, people were just constantly criticizing and ridiculing Jensen or Jeff or Elon for their vision and what they were trying to accomplish.

And so I think that's part of building something for the long term.

That's part of innovating.

Acknowledging that upfront so you're not surprised when people are criticizing you or calling your idea stupid.

That's really important because you have to be able to build the resilience to execute through all that sort of doubt or public pressure or short-termism that pervades public markets today.

I mean, you know, it's funny.

I think back to the early days of Snapchat.

Nobody thought Snapchat could work.

I mean, our early investors we went to talk to were like, yeah, good luck.

You know, try competing with Facebook.

They've got it locked down.

Right.

And so I think, you know, that's been one of just the themes of building our business, that there is, of course, constant doubt, especially when you're innovating, because in order to innovate, you have to do something that's not obvious.

right?

That cuts against the grain.

That's different from the way that people see the world today.

And so that's why this combination of innovating over the long term is so difficult, because you're working on something that's fundamentally misunderstood.

Otherwise, it wouldn't be innovation.

I don't think that's unique to me.