SJ29 – Sex, Innovation, and Morality for Startups

We’re living on the edge today: Jason and Teague are recording from the same location at WeWork Wonder Bread Factory. Links and Highlights: Let’s get ready to DROOOOOOONE. Can drone racing become as big as eSports? The Drone Racing League Wants to Be to Drones What the WWE Is to Wrestling “Explosions and money are the center of any good venn diagram.” “Like any other sport, there’s already a push to sensationalize it and ‘sexy’ it up… The sport is not even out of the hospital bassinet.” Jason and Teague toss out a FREE BUSINESS IDEA for our listeners. If you steal it and launch it, please make us VIP customers, #kthx. Renaissance Florence Was a Better Model for Innovation than Silicon Valley Is “Today, folks are often thrown to the wolves in a lot of ways: sink or swim. It’s a lot harder to find the kind of support you once got, where someone said, ‘I’m going to pay your bills so you can go build things.'” “There’s a reason we keep doing Shakespeare, and a reason we keep bringing up penicillin.” “When you give a mind an opportunity to just be told, ‘go try something and don’t worry about failure,’ there’s real opportunity there… I don’t think potential trumps experience, but potential and experience should balance each other.” “One of the great ways startups can get a leg up is by hiring people who punch above their weight; finding people who have enormous people who haven’t been given their shot yet.” Zenefits Founder Resigns “Is what you’re doing actually harming consumers or harming competition? Is there a problem with pushing those boundaries, whether that problem is purely legal or whether there’s a moral issue at stake?” “In a lot of ways we have a culture that advocates for screwing up, sometimes intentionally breaking laws and regulations, and then just apologize for it, mea culpa, pay a fine, and move on.” “The moral question is, who’s being hurt by the laws that you’re breaking?” “Zenefits is the latest in a series of very public companies that have skirted laws and done things that they know are immoral, and as a culture, how okay are we with that?” New startup aims to transfer people’s consciousness into artificial bodies so they can live forever – TechSpot “This is the beginning of every schlocky sci-fi novel I’ve ever read. Every single one.” (Here’s the definition of schlocky, btw.) “We’re talking about condemning ourselves to a ones and zeroes existence because we’re afraid of dying.” Questions from Quora: “As a non-technical co-founder, what should I be looking for in my Tech Co-Founder in terms of traits, skills, etc?” – (40:55) “I like having a drinking buddy.” “You as the non-technical co-founder have to ask yourself what you’re really looking for. There are some non-tech co-founders who think they’re hiring a general contractor, the same way I’d hire someone renovate my kitchen, fix my bathroom, and paint my house… They have the perception that they’re bringing in a one-size-fits-all ‘tech’ person, and that’s a perception problem you have to get past first.” “When you’re bringing in a co-founder, you’re not actually hiring them… It’s finding a technical co-founder to partner with, so can you partner with them?” Finding someone who’s willing to work with you at all is actually a good start. “My prototype is done. I aim to take on clients from another country. Can I do this without actually being based there?” – (49:12) “The answer is almost always, ‘yes it can.’ The question is, ‘should it be?’” “What’s the value of building a product you can’t sell outside your door right now, unless you intend to move there eventually and go sell it, or you have a ground game you’re really confident in?” The more layers between you and your customers, the slower the feedback loop will be. “Getting someone to use a product is hard. Building it is comparatively easy.” This episode previously aired on 2/10