01:30:03 · Scott Nolan
[01:30:03] S0: Yeah. When I started at Founders Fund, this was 2011. There were a lot of... At the time, Founders Fund was really focused on two things. One, back founders unconditionally. And two, what things can we invest in that are great that otherwise won't receive funding? So where can we make a big impact, both on the team side and then market or sector side or technology side? And so there was this belief that technology was what could fuel the next wave of growth in The US, and it was systematically underfunded and that we should be trying to help that succeed through capital. When I started in 2011, the way that that showed up was you would there were lot of very early stage engineering driven companies. Hard tech, like engineering driven companies were not nearly as popular as they are today. The focus was really things like software and consumer. And so early on, for the first few years, I was much more focused on, I'd say, early stage, smaller checks, seed stage checks into engineering driven companies, which did remain my focus over the twelve plus years. But over time, realize more and more, some of these companies work at a much larger scale than you ever think that they will. And the correct thing is actually to focus on the very small handful of companies that are going to be the most successful, that are going to be the most important, and where you really feel the most conviction in the team, and just work with those companies. And yes, that means you're not getting to invest in a seed stage company at necessarily a really attractive valuation. Maybe you're accepting, hey, I'm not investing in a company that's $10,000,000 pre. I'm investing in a company that's a billion valuation, but what are the odds that this goes 100x? I think these things are sometimes scale invariant, where the probability of going from 10 employees to 100 employees to 1,000 employees, you might be more likely to go from 100 to 1,000 than from 10 to 100. And so looked at in a different way, the conclusion I have is that sometimes it's easier to build a really hard company than it is to build an easy company. At the end of the day, it gets back to what really important problem are you solving that's not getting solved.
01:32:27 · Scott Nolan, Ty Morse
And I think if you are focused on that, if your mission as a company is doing something that's really critical, potentially really challenging, which is why it hasn't been done to date, you can just attract the best people. You can usually get the resources that you need to go do this if you're executing well. And in total, it actually becomes a lot easier than trying to start a small business or something that is much more competed over. And so I think one way that people understand this is start companies in areas without much competition, avoid competition, etcetera. I think the more meaningful way to think about that is don't focus on problems that are already getting solved or adjacent to problems currently being solved that you know are going to be tackled by someone else. Focus on the problems that are big and that are just not getting solved. Dedicate yourself to them. If you do that, it will be very challenging, but it may actually turn out to be easier than starting the next small business or the next small software company. [01:33:35] S1: Yeah. It's funny because you can kind of attract different types of talent. Like, the very best talent... And from what I've seen and experienced, the very best talent wants to work on the hardest problems even if it, like, basically gives them less money or these other things. Like, the enjoyment of working on something that's important and valuable is is more attractive to them. [01:33:54] S0: Yeah. Maybe the problem is twice as hard, but you get 10 times better people. And so, net, it's somehow easier.