Theory & Arbitrage

Here is an essay version of class notes from Class 11 of CS183: Startup. Errors and omissions are mine. Credit for good stuff is Peter’s.

Class 11 Notes Essay—Secrets

I. Secrets

Back in class one, we identified a very key question that you should continually ask yourself: what important truth do very few people agree with you on? To a first approximation, the correct answer is going to be a secret. Secrets are unpopular or unconventional truths. So if you come up with a good answer, that’s your secret.

How many secrets are there in the world? Recall that, reframed in a business context, the key question is: what great company is no one starting? If there are many possible answers, it means that there are many great companies that could be created. If there are no good answers, it’s probably a very bad idea to start a company. From this perspective, the question of how many secrets exist in our world is roughly equivalent to how many startups people should start.

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1st Jun 2012

Measuring Grit and high-achievement. Un-surprisingly, “normal” measures such as SAT scores, GPA and even self-discipline are poor predictors of high achievement.

My favorite line (paraphrased): “West Point was surprised to hear that cadets in the top quartile of overall academic achievement where as likely, if not more likely, as cadets in the bottom quartile to drop out of the school within the first year. Which goes to show that some of the data points we use today may in fact be giving us false positives when selecting on these metrics simply because no one has thought to measure grit instead.”

31st May 2012 | 108 notes

brycedotvc:

Apple’s welcome letter for new hires.

Can the same be said of the company you’re building?

via @m

30th May 2012 | 3 notes

You become what you do. How and what you become depends on environmental influence so you become who you hang around. Raise the standard your peers must meet and you’ll raise your expectations of yourself. If your environment isn’t making you better, change it.

—Gym Jones

29th May 2012

Monday Metal: Atreyu - We Stand Up

28th May 2012 | 158 notes

If you are kind, people may accuse you of selfish, ulterior motives; be kind anyway.
If you are successful, you will win some false friends and true enemies; succeed anyway.
If you are honest and frank, people may cheat you; be honest and frank anyway.
If you find serenity and happiness, they may be jealous; be happy anyway.
The good you do today, people will often forget tomorrow; do good anyway…
You see, in the final analysis, it is between you and God; it was never between you and them anyway.

—Mother Teresa (via myquotelibrary)

(via myquotelibrary)

27th May 2012 | 40 notes

Oh look, the House passed CISPA under the cover of the night

bitshare:

Last night after hours the House decided to vote on CISPA, the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act which has been widely criticized for privacy rights violations because the government and private companies can monitor your private information (emails for example) and pass that information to government agencies completely bypassing Internet privacy laws with little to no probable cause needed.

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