Planning for Volatility
Investing, entrepreneurship and career planning during economic and social uncertainty.
Is Blitzscaling Over?
By Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh As the COVID-19 pandemic continues to batter the world, many have declared an end to the “Unicorn Era” in general and blitzscaling in particular. Suddenly, capital is harder to come by, customers aren’t buying, and none of us can leave our homes. Meanwhile, the United States has already lost more lives to the disease than…
A Fun Moment in Podcasts
I was delighted to learn that WaitWhat, the startup company that makes my podcast Masters of Scale, is up for a few Webby Awards. There’s a popular choice vote that finishes tomorrow, Thursday. Initially, I resisted posting about it and encouraging people to vote; it felt too self-serving. But then I found out that Jessi Hempel is also up for a Webby…
In Praise of Professional Venture Capital
It’s become fashionable among some entrepreneurs, and even some venture capitalists, to badmouth the venture capital industry. The industry certainly has many flaws. But to paraphrase Winston Churchill, venture capital is the worst method for financing scaling startups except for all the others. One of the conversations I had with Wences Casares (founder and CEO of Xapo), during…
Chile, Entrepreneurs, Endeavor, and Global Lessons
Silicon Valley can frequently be too provincial in its views of entrepreneurship, strategy, and markets. Part of why I’m on this trip with Wences Casares (founder and CEO of Xapo) is to learn (and share) a broader view of entrepreneurship, where the strategies of Blitzscaling can be applied outside of Silicon Valley and China, and participate in Endeavor’s critical global mission for…
Argentina Entrepreneurship, Endeavor, and Global Lessons
I’ve come down to Argentina with my friend and portfolio company CEO, Wences Casares, the founder of Xapo. Wences and I have served on the board of Endeavor together, which enables high impact entrepreneurship around the world. As part of connecting with local Argentinian entrepreneurs and part of the amazing Endeavor networks here and South America, Wences and I…
Tory Burch: Combining Incredible Patience and Explosive Speed
Successful entrepreneurs have to find a way to combine both incredible patience and explosive speed. Sounds paradoxical? Perhaps, but that same, seemingly conflicting combination has powered the success of fashion designer Tory Burch. In this episode of Masters of Scale, you’ll hear how Tory’s remarkable story combines patience and speed. You’ll hear how Tory went from a tomboy who…
WeWork: Blitzscaling or Blitzflailing?
Prominent news organizations, ranging from The Economist to Wired (multiple times), have been describing WeWork as an example of blitzscaling. New York Magazine offers a vivid example, writing in a WeWork profile: “The [Softbank] Vision Fund began making enormous bets on Uber, Slack, DoorDash, and dozens of other companies, employing a strategy that has come to be known, with some derision, as “blitzscaling”:…
Mastering Growth
How I’m working with Harvard Business School Online to teach the counterintuitive truths of scaling up As a founder, you rarely have enough time to step back and strategize. Entrepreneurs feel the pressure to execute, often prioritizing daily firefighting over long-term planning. You put your blinders on and stay laser-focused on what’s directly ahead. But…
Blitzscaling | Competitive Strategy
This episode in our Greymatter Blitzscaling capsule series, with Reid Hoffman and Chris Yeh, focuses on the topic of competitive strategy. In an ideal world, you won’t have any competition. But the world is far from ideal. How should a blitzscaling company think about and respond to the competition? Below is an edited transcript of Reid…
Announcing the Blitzscaling Series, a new part of Greylock’s Greymatter Podcast
Welcome to the next production of Blitzscaling! Since the launch of our book, and after the Stanford class, Chris Yeh and I have received many questions from entrepreneurs who want more details on how to blitzscale their companies. We want to answer the questions at scale! That’s why we’re working with the team at Greylock Partners to release the…
Segovia’s Next Step
The best way to combat global poverty at scale is to put money directly into the hands of millions of people who have very little of it. That’s the simple, powerful vision that Segovia CEO Michael Faye and his co-founder Paul Niehaus pitched me in 2015, and the reason I was excited to lead their Series A round with a personal…
Those Who Teach, Can Do
In Silicon Valley, intelligence is both abundant and coveted. Because of this fact, Silicon Valley job interview questions have gotten tougher — and weirder — as interviewers devise queries designed to identify the best of the brightest. Consider, these brainteasers that various companies have asked job candidates in recent years: How many golf balls can…
The pioneers of Silicon Valley’s fast culture on how to grow quickly, not recklessly
Tim O’Reilly’s recent article, “The fundamental problem with Silicon Valley’s favorite growth strategy,” makes an impassioned argument that the ideas in our book, Blitzscaling, encourage entrepreneurs to behave in ways that are irresponsible or even dangerous in the pursuit of what he characterizes as “runaway growth.” Instead, he argues for the virtues of going slow and…
How to Build a Strong, Scalable Culture for Blitzscaling
At this point, almost everyone in the startup world agrees that hiring and culture are important. Whenever these topics arise, it’s almost guaranteed that the discussion will touch on how every Google employee had to interview with Larry and Sergey before receiving an offer, how Zappos offers new employees $1,000 to quit to weed out…