High Growth Handbook

386 Pages·2018·1.39 MB·English

by  Elad Gil

To my lovely wife Jennifer and son Liav. Suddenly, everything is possible
again.
To my fantastic parents and my amazing sister, thank you for all the support
and belief over the years.
P.S. To any children born in the future, sorry you are not in this dedication.
You would be in here if you already existed.
INTERVIEWS WITH
Sam Altman
Marc Andreessen
Patrick Collison
Joelle Emerson
Erin Fors
Reid Hoffman
Claire Hughes Johnson
Aaron Levie
Mariam Naficy
Keith Rabois
Naval Ravikant
Ruchi Sanghvi
Shannon Stubo Brayton
Hemant Taneja
Thank you to the founders and entrepreneurs I have worked with over the last
decade either formally or informally. Your dedication, creativity, curiosity,
energy, and hope to have a lasting impact and to make the world a better
place has been inspiring.
Countless people contributed their thoughts, revisions, and feedback on early
versions of parts of this book.
Thanks to the entrepreneurs and investors who allowed me to interview them,
and whose perspectives have added immeasurably to this book. Sam Altman,
Marc Andreessen, Patrick Collison, Joelle Emerson, Erin Fors, Reid
Hoffman, Claire Hughes Johnson, Aaron Levie, Mariam Naficy, Keith
Rabois, Naval Ravikant, Ruchi Sanghvi, Shannon Stubo Brayton, and
Hemant Taneja: Thank you for making this book smarter than I could have
done on my own.
Thanks to Stripe for believing in this project and committing to it early on.
Thanks to Brianna Wolfson for managing the book project, Tyler Thompson
for creative direction, Kevin Wong for interior layout, Christina Bailey for
transcribing the interviews and early edits, and Dylan Tweney for editing the
manuscript.
PRAISE FOR HIGH GROWTH HANDBOOK
“Elad Gil is one of Silicon Valley’s seriously knowledgeable and battle-tested
players. If you want the chance to turn your start-up into the next Google or
Twitter, then read this trenchant guide from someone who played key roles in
the growth of these companies.”
—Reid Hoffman, cofounder of LinkedIn,
co-author of the #1 NYT bestsellers The Alliance and The Startup of You
“This book is packed with key frameworks for building your company, as
well as inside knowledge gleaned from helping some of the most important
new companies in tech. I have benefited from Elad’s advice at Instacart and
this book codifies many of those learnings in book form.”
—Apoorva Mehta, cofounder and CEO of Instacart
“Elad eschews trite management aphorisms in favor of pragmatic and
straight-shooting insights on complex topics like managing a board of
directors, executing functional re-organizations with as little trauma as
possible, and everything in-between.”
—Dick Costolo, former CEO of Twitter and serial entrepreneur
“Armed with observations gathered scaling some of the most successful and
important companies of Silicon Valley, Elad has no-nonsense, highly
applicable advice to any operator transitioning a company from the proverbial
garage to the next stage and beyond.”
—Max Levchin, cofounder and CEO of Affirm, cofounder and CTO of PayPal
“Elad first invested in Airbnb when we were less than 10 people and
provided early advice on scaling the company. This book shares these
learnings for the next generation of entrepreneurs.”
—Nathan Blecharczyk, cofounder of Airbnb, Chief Strategy Officer, and Chairman
of Airbnb China
“Elad is one of the best connected and respected early stage investors in the
Valley - he invested in Minted when we had fewer than 50 employees and his
advice was critical to us in growing our business to where we are now, in the
low hundreds of millions in sales. In his book, he crystallizes all of these
learnings for the next generation of companies.”
—Mariam Naficy cofounder and CEO of Minted
“Elad is one of the most experienced operators in Silicon Valley having seen
numerous companies hit their inflection point. His advice has been key for
Coinbase as we go through hypergrowth, from hiring executives to improving
M&A.”
—Brian Armstrong, cofounder and CEO of Coinbase
“Elad jam packs every useful lesson about building and scaling companies in
a single, digestible book. My only gripe is that he didn’t write this when we
were in the early days of Box as it would have saved my ass countless times.”
—Aaron Levie, cofounder and CEO of Box
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Elad Gil
Elad Gil is an entrepreneur, operating executive, and investor or advisor to
private companies such as Airbnb, Coinbase, Checkr, Gusto, Instacart,
OpenDoor, Pinterest, Square, Stripe, Wish, and others.
He is cofounder and chairman at Color Genomics. Elad was CEO of Color
from 2013 to December 2016.
Previously, he was the VP of Corporate Strategy at Twitter, where he also ran
various product (Geo, Search) and other operational teams (M&A and
corporate development). Elad joined Twitter via the acquisition of Mixer
Labs, a company where he was cofounder and CEO. Mixer Labs ran GeoAPI,
one of the early developercentric platform infrastructure products.
Elad spent many years at Google, where he started the mobile team and was
involved in all aspects of getting that team up and running. He was involved
with three acquisitions (including the Android team) and was the original
Product Manager for Google Mobile Maps and other key mobile products.
Prior to Google, Elad had product management and market-seeding roles at a
number of Silicon Valley companies. He also worked at McKinsey & Co.
Elad received his Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and
has degrees in Mathematics and Biology from the University of California,
San Diego.
A NOTE TO READERS
How to use this book
Many of the sections of this book started life as blog posts on my website,
blog.eladgil.com, where I’ve been writing since 2007.
It’s not meant to be read straight through, like a novel or a class curriculum.
This is meant to be an active reference—a book you can flip through to find
useful guidance on specific topics when you need some perspective or
advice.
I’ve included many interviews from entrepreneurs with proven track records.
Although I have worked at some of the fastestgrowing companies in Silicon
Valley history, my experience is far from exhaustive. Sometimes it just helps
to have different perspectives. I’m honored to include these experts’
perspectives, even when—especially when—it doesn’t jibe completely with
my own. You might find it fun to skip between interviews and read one after
the other—there are some great stories and valuable advice embedded within.
When there are online references that might prove useful, I’ve included a
footnote pointing to my website, where you can find more direct links to
these resources.
For those links, additional resources, and updates, visit growth.eladgil.com.
Table of
contents
DEDICATION
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
HOW TO USE THIS BOOK
INTRODUCTION
Welome to the High Growth Handbook
An interview with Marc Andreessen
CHAPTER 1: THE ROLE OF THE CEO
The role of the CEO: Managing yourself
Personal time management
Delegate
Audit your calendar weekly, then monthly
Learn to say No
Realize your old patterns of work can no longer apply
Take vacations and time off
Work on things you care about
The role of the CEO: Managing your reports
An interview with CLAIRE HUGHES JOHNSON
Insights: Working with Claire: an unauthorized guide
The changing cofounder dynamic
CHAPTER 2: MANAGING THE BOARD
“Hiring” your board of directors
Choosing a VC partner who is right for your board
Choosing an independent board member
The chairman of the board
Board diversity
Ways to source diverse board candidates
Board evolution over time