Extra Resources

Introduction

• Interview: Marc Andreessen
  • Jeff Bezos favors product innovation teams with five to seven people – no more than can be fed with two pizzas. See eladgil.com. [ https://www.fastcompany.com/50661/inside-mind-jeff-bezos ]

The Role of the CEO

• The role of the CEO: Managing yourself
  • Read the original post on entrepreneurial seductions and distractions at eladgil.com. [http://blog.eladgil.com/2013/05/entrepreneurial-seductions-and.html]
• The role of the CEO: Managing your reports
  • See links on eladgil.com. [https://a16z.com/2012/08/18/a-good-place-to-work/ and https://a16z.com/2012/08/30/one-on-one/ ]
• The changing cofounder dynamic
  • See eladgil.com. [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2012/02/how-to-choose-co-founder.html ]
  • See link on eladgil.com. [https://www.buzzfeed.com/amygrindhouse/a-mark-zuckerberg-production-1qq?utm_term=.qfbBY80xEV#.su1OnjRzW7 ]

Managing the board

• Hiring your board of directors
  • see eladgil.com for a link to a story about Elon Musk and John Doerr. [ https://pando.com/2012/07/17/who-made-the-bigger-mistake-in-the-botched-series-c-for-tesla-elon-musk-or-john-doerr/ ]
  • See eladgil.com for a link to a useful Mark Suster post on board observers. [ https://bothsidesofthetable.com/rethinking-board-observers-the-role-of-the-silent-observer-eee4ccecac7d ]
  • Many thanks to Josh Hannah, Naval Ravikant, Sam Altman, and David King for providing feedback on the original version of this material on choosing an independent board member. The original blog post is on eladgil.com. [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2011/12/how-to-choose-board-member.html ]
  • https://theboardlist.com/
  • see eladgil.com for links. [ https://www.forbes.com/power-women/#750df0665e25 and http://savoynetwork.com/top100/ ]
• Removing board members from your board
  • see eladgil.com. [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2011/03/how-funding-rounds-differ-seed-series.html ]
  • See eladgil.com. [ http://venturehacks.com/archives#board-of-directors ]
• Interview: Reid Hoffman
  • See “If, Why, and How Founders Should Hire a Professional CEO,” on Reid’s blog. [ http://www.reidhoffman.org/if-why-and-how-founders-should-hire-a-professional-ceo/ ]
  • See Reid’s post on “If, Why, and How Founders Should Hire a ‘Professional’ CEO.” [http://www.reidhoffman.org/if-why-and-how-founders-should-hire-a-professional-ceo/ ]
• The role of the CEO: Managing your board of directors
  • Mark Suster has a good post on holding better board meetings. See eladgil.com. [ https://bothsidesofthetable.com/why-you-re-not-getting-the-most-out-of-your-board-abf9e8b891d9 ]
  • What Marc Andreessen calls “the only thing that matters.” See eladgil.com. [ https://pmarchive.com/guide_to_startups_part4.html ]
  • For good examples of board decks, see eladgil.com. [ https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/preparing-a-board-deck and http://resources.iaventures.com/#board ]
  • Sequoia’s Bryan Schreier has a useful post on preparing a board deck. See eladgil.com. [https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/preparing-a-board-deck/]
  • See eladgil.com. [ https://bothsidesofthetable.com/rethinking-board-observers-the-role-of-the-silent-observer-eee4ccecac7d ]
  • For more readings on board meetings, see eladgil.com. [ http://www.bothsidesofthetable.com/2013/12/09/why-youre-not-getting-the-most-out-of-your-board/ ]
  • http://www.joangarry.com/executive-session/
  • http://venturehacks.com/archives#board-of-directors
  • https://www.sequoiacap.com/article/preparing-a-board-deck/

Recruiting, hiring, and managing talent

• Scaling a recruiting organization
  • See https://www.paradigmiq.com/blog
  • Link on eladgil.com. [ https://paradigmiq.app.box.com/s/bpk3v4umfbj8dkakepwvqpqt79y87tyt ]

Building the executive team

• Hiring executives
  • Read the original post at eladgil.com [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2014/02/6-traits-for-hiring-executives.html ]. Thanks to Ali Rowghani for early feedback on this chapter.
• Do you need a COO?
  • Of course, another option is to replace yourself as CEO instead. Reid Hoffman wrote a great piece about this topic; see the link on eladgil.com. [ http://www.reidhoffman.org/if-why-and-how-founders-should-hire-a-professional-ceo/ ])
  • See “The Secrets of Working With Bill Gates.” Link on eladgil.com. [ https://www.americanexpress.com/us/small-business/openforum/articles/the-secrets-of-working-with-bill-gates/ ]
  • Thanks to Aaron Levie, Jess Lee, and Keith Rabois for reviewing and providing feedback on the original version of this post on eladgil.com. [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2013/02/should-you-hire-coo.html ]
• Firing executives
  • See related post by Ben Horowitz. Link on eladgil.com. [ https://a16z.com/2011/08/24/preparing-to-fire-an-executive/ ]
• How to hire great business development people
  • Read the original post at eladgil.com. [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2013/02/hiring-great-business-people-is-hard.html ]
• Interview: Mariam Naficy
  • Published in the Harvard Business Review in 1996. Link at eladgil.com. [ https://hbr.org/1996/11/what-is-strategy ]

Organizational structure and hypergrowth

• Organizational structure is all about pragmatism
  • Read the original post at eladgil.com. [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2015/10/organizational-structure-is-all-about.html ]
• Company culture and its evolution
  • Related links on eladgil.com. [ http://www.au.af.mil/au/awc/awcgate/ndu/strat-ldr-dm/pt4ch15.html and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Value_(ethics) ].
  • See “when and how to fire employees” on eladgil.com. [ http://blog.eladgil.com/2010/06/startups-when-how-to-fire-employee-at.html ]
• Managing in a downturn
  • Business cycles: See Wikipedia for an introduction. Link on eladgil.com. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Business_cycle ]
  • See Aaron Harris, “Don’t Focus on the NASDAQ.” Link on eladgil.com. [ http://www.aaronkharris.com/dont-focus-on-the-nasdaq ]

Product Management

• Product management overview
  • Ben Horowitz has a classic post on this topic. See eladgil.com. [ https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/ ]
• Characteristics of great product managers
  • Ben Horowitz has a good post on this, although it is focused on 1990s enterprise-PMs. See link on eladgil.com. [ https://a16z.com/2012/06/15/good-product-managerbad-product-manager/ ]
• Product to distribution mindset
  • See eladgil.com for a link to a comprehensive list. [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_acquisitions_by_Cisco_Systems ]
  • See “The untold story about the founding of Google Maps.” Link on eladgil.com. [ https://medium.com/@lewgus/the-untold-story-about-the-founding-of-google-maps-e4a5430aec92 ]

Financing and valuation

• Late stage financing: who should you be talking to?
  • See eladgil.com. [ http://fortune.com/2015/11/12/fidelity-marks-down-tech-unicorns/ ]
  • Strategics are large, cash-rich companies in your industry who may want to invest in order to (1) cut a broader partnership with your company, (2) learn more about how software and technology may impact their industry, or (3) try to acquire you later. For example, Roche was part of $100 million round in Flatiron, GM was part of a $1 billion round in Lyft, and Intel was part of a major round in Cloudera. [ http://arstechnica.com/cars/2016/01/general-motors-bought-sidecar-gave-lyft-millions-now-its-launching-maven/ ]
  • See eladgil.com. [ https://www.forbes.com/pictures/fiii45hlf/participating-preferred-vs-non-participating-preferred/ ]
  • Related post on eladgil.com [http://blog.eladgil.com/2012/11/how-to-choose-right-vc-partner-for-you.html ]
• Secondary stock sales
  • See article linked on eladgil.com. [ https://www.law360.com/articles/516967/sec-settles-with-firms-over-pre-ipo-facebook-trading ]
  • See eladgil.com [ https://beta.techcrunch.com/2009/07/13/dst-to-buy-up-to-100-million-in-facebook-employee-stock/ ]
  • See link at eladgil.com. [ https://dealbook.nytimes.com/2012/03/14/charges-filed-against-brokerage-firms-that-trade-private-shares/?_r=0 ]