Katherine Boyle

You call a 70-year-old famous venture capitalist by their first name.

You have to shed whatever you have learned in your previous life and realize you're going into a totally new culture.

And you have to blend in on that culture.

Like you have to learn the culture.

Like that's what your first year in Silicon Valley should be.

And you should go to a crazy early stage startup or a venture firm that's totally different than anything you've seen and you should just listen.

Because once you learn the culture and once you learn the language, then you can be an operator.

But you have to learn the culture.

And you have to respect it.

So first day at Founders Fund, actually, one of the EAs came over to me.

I was wearing heels.

And I can dress like this now because I'm a Florida lady.

But I was in San Francisco.

And I was wearing heels.

And I dressed like I was going to a nice internship.

And she's like, you need to take that off.

I'm going to get you a SpaceX hoodie.

You need to wear jeans.

You need to blend in here.

This is not going to work if you can't blend in."