The Twenty Minute VC

Keith Rabois & Mike Shebat: Creating an Olympian Mindset to Work Ethic| E1087

Every single 20VC episode is recorded with Riverside.FM. It is the one product that I could not live without. Try it today here (https://creators.riverside.fm/20VC) and use the code 20VC for 15% off. ----------------------------------------------- Keith Rabois is a General Partner @ Founders Fund, one of the world’s best venture funds with a portfolio including the likes of Facebook, SpaceX, Anduril, Tesla and many more. For the last 23 years straight, Keith has either invested in or founded a $BN company. Keith is also the Co-Founder and CEO @ Openstore, the company that will buy or run your Shopify business. Mike Shebat is the Founder and CEO @ Traba, the company providing industrial staffing when and where you need it. To date, Mike has raised $49M with Traba from some of the best including Founders Fund, General Catalyst and Khosla Ventures. ----------------------------------------------- Timestamps: (0:00) Intro (00:41) Work Ethic and Culture Insights (08:22) High-Performance Metaphors in Work (13:25) Side Projects and Work-Life Balance (20:19) Work Culture: Global Perspectives (26:32) Scaling and Sustaining Intense Work Cultures (36:10) Parenting and Maintaining a Strong Work Ethic (41:09) Early Entrepreneurship and Its Impact (45:30) First-Time Founders: Mistakes and Lessons (52:12) Company Transparency and Investor Relations (01:02:04) Quick-Fire Round: Leadership, Investment, and Business Strategy ----------------------------------------------- In Today’s Episode with Mike Shebat and Keith Rabois We Discuss: 1. What it Takes to Build a Great: Why does Mike expect everyone to work in office 12 hours per day, 4 days per week? At what point does an extra hour of work not lead to more output? What are the expectations in terms of emails, out of office, the weekends? Keith, from the 23 BN companies you have worked with, is this insane work ethic aligned to all of them? Which had it? What did not? What core components of PayPal’s work ethic made it so strong? What does Keith mean when he says Linkedin could and should have been 5x bigger? 2. The Hiring Process for the Swat Team: What does the hiring process look like for this type of work environment? What are the signs that someone is really aligned to it vs faking it for the interview process? What have been Keith’s biggest lessons on both compensation and title in the hiring process? Why does Keith believe that culture is like concrete? What are the biggest mistakes he has made on culture and what would he have done differently? 3. First-Time Founders, Innate Entrepreneurs & Europe’s Failing: Does Keith agree the best founders always show signs of early entrepreneurship in their teens? Why does Keith prefer first-time founders to serial entrepreneurs? Why are they better? Why does Keith believe that Europe has not created a $100BN company since 1990? 4. Remote Work, Network Effects and Baseball: Why does Keith believe being great in venture is like baseball? Why does Keith and Founders Fund not invest in remote teams? How does he explain Gitlab? Why does Keith believe Airbnb has the best network effect he has ever seen? ----------------------------------------------- Subscribe on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3j2KMcZTtgTNBKwtZBMHvl?si=85bc9196860e4466 Subscribe on Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-twenty-minute-vc-20vc-venture-capital-startup/id958230465 Follow Harry Stebbings on Twitter: https://twitter.com/HarryStebbings Follow Keith Rabois on Twitter: https://twitter.com/@rabois Follow Mike Shebat on Twitter: https://twitter.com/@mike_sheb Follow 20VC on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/20vchq Follow 20VC on TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@20vc_tok Visit our Website: https://www.20vc.com Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://www.thetwentyminutevc.com/contact ----------------------------------------------- #VentureCapital #MikeShebat #KeithRabois #FoundersFund #Traba #HarryStebbings

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Nov 26, 20231h 6mWatch on YouTube ↗

WHAT IT’S REALLY ABOUT

Olympian Work Ethic: Building Trillion-Dollar Startups Through Extreme Commitment

Keith Rabois and Traba CEO Mike Shebat discuss building a "once-in-a-generation" company by treating startups like Olympic teams, demanding extreme in-person commitment and long hours as a non-negotiable cultural foundation.
They argue that sustained, intense effort in your 20s, deep focus on a single craft, and an unapologetically high bar for talent are prerequisites for top 1% outcomes, both for individuals and companies.
The conversation explores how to design, scale, and defend such a culture, how equity and mission outweigh cash and titles, and why most conventional advice on work-life balance, side projects, and remote work is misaligned with building truly great companies.
Rabois also shares meta-lessons from decades of investing, including why culture must be intentionally set early, why first-time founders are often better bets, and how truly great investors and founders think in terms of leverage and frameworks, not generic best practices.

IDEAS WORTH REMEMBERING

5 ideas

Treat startups like Olympic teams, not families.

Traba explicitly sets expectations of 12-hour in-office days, 60+ hour weeks, and a “pull your weight or leave” mindset; this self-selects for people who genuinely want top 1% outcomes and repels those optimizing for balance.

Be radically upfront about culture to attract the right talent.

Shebat intentionally describes Traba’s intensity in interviews and watches candidates’ reactions; enthusiasm and relief are green flags, attempts to negotiate expectations are red flags that prevent future misalignment.

Input hours matter, but leverage on time matters more.

Both guests stress that the point isn’t mindless grind but using a known 60+ hour commitment to drive urgency, compound decision speed, and focus those hours on the highest-leverage activities for the business.

Cash and titles are strong signals of cultural fit.

Obsession with title is a hard red flag at Traba because it indicates ego over team; heavy focus on cash over equity is a yellow flag that often correlates with misalignment on long-term upside and startup risk.

Culture is wet concrete: shape it early or need a jackhammer later.

Rabois notes his biggest regret as a founder was not being as intentional as Traba from day one; early hires who are off-culture replicate themselves and force painful, expensive “jackhammer” corrections later.

WORDS WORTH SAVING

5 quotes

Everyone should be joining a company more like an Olympic sports team. It’s not a family, it’s an Olympic sports team.

— Mike Shebat

Effort and input is what dictates results. There’s never been a substitute for effort and dedication to your craft if you want to be top 1% in any field.

— Keith Rabois

Culture is like concrete in liquid form. Once it solidifies, it takes a jackhammer to break.

— Keith Rabois

If you want top-of-the-bell-curve results, live a middle-of-the-bell-curve life. If you want far-right outcomes, you cannot.

— Paraphrased from Mike Shebat’s bell curve discussion

I do believe strongly that everyone should be joining a company more like an Olympic sports team. When you’re an athlete that’s not pulling your weight, you get pushed off the team.

— Mike Shebat

Defining and operationalizing an “Olympian” work ethic at startupsIntentional culture design, hiring filters, and rapid cultural correctionTrade-offs: side projects, focus, cash vs. equity, and titlesScaling a high-intensity culture and avoiding regression to the meanEarly-career choices, 20s as foundation-building, and resourcefulnessInvestor–founder dynamics, first-time founders, and pattern recognitionDebate on remote work, ecosystems, and what truly powers outlier companies

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