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Why Uber is The Revenge of the Founders

Steve Blank

Why do these founders get to stay around? Because the balance of power has dramatically shifted from investors to founders. VCs competing for unicorn investments have given founders control of the board. — all great things when you are executing and scaling a known business model. Board Control.

Founder 245
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Innovation, Change and the Rest of Your Life

Steve Blank

I’ve seen the Valley grow from Sunnyvale to Santa Clara to today where it stretches from San Jose to South of Market in San Francisco. I’ve watched the Valley go from Microwave Valley – to Defense Valley – to Silicon Valley to Internet Valley. So how did this happen? Where is it going?

Restful 222
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When It’s Darkest Men See the Stars

Steve Blank

Over the last half a century, Silicon Valley has grown into the leading technology and innovation cluster for the United States and the world. The founders were simply wrong about their assumptions about customer needs. While companies execute business models, startups search for a business model. (Or

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Is the Lean Startup Dead?

Steve Blank

Jeff Katzenberg has a great track record – head of the studio at Paramount, chairman of Disney Studios, co-founder of DreamWorks and now chairman of NewTV. The mantra of “ first mover advantage ,” the idea that winners are the ones who are the first entrants in their market, became the conventional wisdom of investors in Silicon Valley.“

Lean 335
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Am I a Founder? The Adventure of a Lifetime. « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

Posted on June 11, 2009 by steveblank When my students ask me about whether they should be a founder or cofounder of a startup I ask them to take a walk around the block and ask themselves: Are you comfortable with: Chaos – startups are disorganized Uncertainty – startups never go per plan Are you: Resilient – at times you will fail – badly.

Cofounder 219
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Founders and dysfunctional families « Steve Blank

Steve Blank

We agreed that all her founding CEOs seemed to have the same set of personality traits – tenacious, passionate, relentless, resilient, agile, and comfortable operating in chaos. What makes an individual a great startup founder (versus an employee) has been something I had been thinking about since I retired.

Founder 297
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Hacking for Defense @ Stanford 2021 Lessons Learned Presentations

Steve Blank

While all the teams used the Mission Model Canvas , (videos here ), Customer Development and Agile Engineering to build Minimal Viable Products, each of their journeys was unique. Steve Weinstein , 30-year veteran of Silicon Valley technology companies and Hollywood media companies. He runs H4X Labs.

Lean 385