Daniel Gross: belief

Transcript context

…Yes, resilience is somehow hard to test for, right? It just needs to be observed. It’s one of those things you can figure out fairly quickly. I just don’t know if there’s an interview question to figure it out. Yes. One of the reasons why founders are not strictly economically motivated and are motivated by some deeper belief, or better, is the underlying barometer of what they’re going to be resilient about is much greater than the local game of, “Oh, this fundraising round fell through.” There’s a much deeper game going on. It’s basically, “Oh, I told everyone I know. I never felt like I ever fit in anywhere in life. I’ve now gone around and told all my friends and family that I’m doing this company thing. I’m doing the company thing. The company thing cannot fail.” I think that type of perseverance . . . Look, every single great start-up has had these dark moments of death or near death. Obviously, everyone’s talking about SpaceX famously failed three launches and couldn’t fail the fourth. Every start-up has that narrative. You often need someone that’s powered by a deeper reserve currency than dollars in order to see through that. Is your office messy or neat? When you walk into someone’s office or workspace, do you judge them one way or another on how talented they are, depending on how messy it is?…

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