Stephen Johnston

Some key takeways on this podcast from Bob Sutton and Huggy Rao (Stanford) below: Key Takeaway 1: Friction in organizations increases as they grow larger and more complex, making it difficult to get things done efficiently. This is due to added processes, specialization, and hierarchy that are necessary but can hinder productivity if not managed well. Key Takeaway 2: Leaders should strive to be "elephants" who listen and ask helpful questions, rather than "hippopotamuses" who constantly talk and make statements. Encouraging open communication and collaboration while respecting others' time is crucial for reducing friction. Key Takeaway 3: Speed is important for startups, but it must be balanced with the ability to pivot when needed. Temporarily halting hiring or product development can allow for necessary adjustments and prevent friction from building up. >> This is the top reason startups fail, don't pivot/iterate fast enough. Key Takeaway 4: Founders should be mindful when allocating equity and hiring early on. Keeping some equity in reserve and staggering hiring can help maintain flexibility and prevent friction caused by misaligned incentives or onboarding challenges. Key Takeaway 5: Reducing organizational friction requires regularly "mowing the lawn" by removing unnecessary processes, meetings, and bureaucracy. This is an ongoing effort, not a one-time event, and is essential for maintaining efficiency as organizations grow. https://lnkd.in/e5SfQwCU

14

1 Comment

Have a story to tell... Use Narratize AI Co-Authoring platform to tell your stories in an impactful manner. Katie Trauth Taylor, PhD and the entire team is committed to helping you in becoming amazing storytellers. Check out their impressive work at https://lnkd.in/gnNYHSSX Start telling your stories with Narratize AI as your co-author. #generativeai #storytelling #innovation #aicoauthoring #innovators #researchers #impactstories #startups #problemsolvers #AI #AIStartup

3

1 Comment

A SAFE and convertible note had a baby and Wilson Sonsini Goodrich & Rosati was the midwife- out popped the D-SAFE! 👶🏽🎉 A new #climatetech funding instrument was announced by Elemental Excelerator last week. One of the company’s main goals is to support smaller, up and coming companies during the awkward “Scale Gap” phase between #VC funding and natural growth. It’s called the #DSAFE (Development Simple Agreement for Future Equity) and it aims to aid the process by giving companies a small amount of cash to overcome initial risks and expenses during the developmental stages of a product launch or company. How does it work? D-SAFE has a redemption clause meaning companies can choose to have their payments offered as a loan or convert to equity at the investor’s discretion. Funders and companies will have clear communication and expectations about where the money is going and how it will be applied to either the company or the projects at hand. Financiers and companies will work together with more #transparency, and that’s a great boon for #startups and VC alike. As of this month, Elemental has already invested using D-SAFE in eight different companies, including Dimensional Energy and Origen — both companies investing in innovative and out-of-the-box solutions to environmental issues! Seems like a win-win on the surface. What do you all think about the D-SAFE? Alfredo Coppola Momoka Ueda Tim Wagner Stephen D. Torres Olya Irzak Natsuho Toyama Noriya Tarutani Shin Ogawa

15

6 Comments

🔥 🔥 🙌 🙌 🎆 🎆 I'm *fired up* to share this. #VentureIQ by the 9point8 Collective is officially live. We've heard from investors of every size and type that it takes too long and costs too much to evaluate deal flow; this limits the scale and speed at which these capital allocators can operate. To address this problem, we've created an innovative solution which delivers high fidelity diligence information near instantaneously. From a time and cost perspective, VentureIQ immediately creates leverage to look at more deals - and creates space to focus deeply on the most meaningful opportunities. To learn more, you can reach out to me directly or visit VentureIQ.ai. I'll close with some thoughts on my team, to whom I'm so grateful. Blair Merlino, Neal Ghosh and Evan Allen don't just talk about interesting concepts, point out problems or pontificate on what could be. Instead, they identify a problem, frame and validate the solution, and do the work to bring it to reality. VentureIQ is the best example I've seen of this, to date. #VentureCapital, #FamilyOffice, #PrivateEquity #CorporateDevelopment #Startups

9

2 Comments

I’m delighted to showcase a special guest blog from my Stanford colleague, Dr. Frederik G. Pferdt. Frederik is Google’s original Chief Innovation Evangelist, and just published his first book, “What’s Next Is Now.” *** Let’s face it: our minds are wired to crave certainty about the future. We scour the news, analyze trends, and even check our horoscopes—all in search of a glimpse into what’s coming next. But here’s the thing: that relentless hunt for predictions is a mistake! Why? Because the future isn’t something that happens to you. It’s something you actively shape. By obsessing over predictions, we become passive observers, waiting for the future to unfold. But what if we flipped the script? What if we stopped worrying about what might happen and started creating the future we want? I’m a future optimist because I believe in embracing the opportunities ahead rather than fearing uncertainty. The choices you make today are the building blocks of your future. The more intentional and varied your choices, the more opportunities you create for yourself. On the flip side, if you avoid stepping outside your comfort zone, someone else ends up making choices for you. Ever wonder how people find themselves in unfulfilling careers? It’s often because they stopped making intentional choices that could have led them down a different path. They become passengers in a car driven by fate, luck, or happenstance. But here’s the good news: You don’t have to be a passenger. You can be the driver. Imagination is your most powerful tool. By engaging with the possibilities of each moment, you start to see a different landscape for your future. (More insights at the link in comments below!)

32

9 Comments

"Editors note: Welcome to issue #2 of Transcriptions. Today, we’d like to present a conversation between Qasar Younis of Applied Intuition, and Bilal Zuberi of Lux Capital. We discovered Qasar recently, and find his focus and clarity of thinking to be admirable. What follows is a lightly edited transcript of their talk, first held at the Paklaunch forum." Link to transcipt: https://lnkd.in/gH4uBmPE

12

2 Comments

If you are in the VC space, you should know one of the early drivers of "Moneyball for VC". That's Gopinath Sundaramurthy, Ph.D Gopi partnered with the Kauffman Fellows Fund on implementing these concepts in their investment process. The results were staggering. 50% of the investments the fund made became unicorns. In Gopi's words 👇🏻 "We knew something was working, so we thought: Let's build this a little bigger." What did that look like in practice? 1️⃣ Gopi's firm uses a single ‘source of truth’ platform to centralize information, improving decision-making and consistency. 2️⃣ They maintain an even 50/50 split between data engineers and investors to ensure they leverage data to gain insights into teams, markets, and products. Want to learn more about what Gopi and the team at Ensemble VC has implemented at their firm? Check out the case study that our sponsor Harmonic published about the firm -->

53

2 Comments

What do you do when a radical new technology puts your main product right in the crosshairs of disruption? Listen to David Okuniev — co-founder of Typeform | Ask awesomely — discuss the challenges of innovation within existing structures. David shared a game-changing insight: Radical innovation is really, really difficult to do inside your own product. He emphasized the need to break free from the constraints of familiarity and embrace change from outside the box. Henrik Werdelin and I have both seen our fair share of this in our respective careers. What struck us most was how David leveraged structure to overcome the innovator’s dilemma. By creating a culture of experimentation and providing space for bold ideas, he propelled Typeform beyond incremental improvements. What other hacks have you seen or employed to help your organization overcome the innovator’s dilemma? Share your stories below! 👇 And if you want to dive deeper into our conversation, click the link in the comments to catch the full podcast episode!

4

2 Comments

Having read Donella Meadows in collegue and studied with students of hers at Rocky Mountain Institute, I have always sought to identify leverage points for change in a system before building out frameworks to track progress in shifting those points. And I agree with Ivo Degn here, I have found through my professional experience that if you only focus on impact metrics, you end up with huge teams collecting data (and there is somehow never enough data on this track) and costly verifications all of which take time and resources away from the real work of implimenting the change. Having quality indicators that provide insight into directionality -towards or away from -the key levers that you have identified and tracking those is important. Unless you are a scientist doing research, everything else is bean counting.

47

8 Comments