How Co-founder Burnout Traces Back to Self-Abandonment

1. 0:00 – 1:09

   Intro

   1. GTGarry Tan0:00

      Weirdest thing that sometimes with co-founders happens is if it doesn't go well, then, uh, it couldn't be me, it's got to be this other person. (laughs)

   2. GTGarry Tan0:08

      It takes two-

   3. GTGarry Tan0:09

      Yeah.

   4. GTGarry Tan0:09

      ... that's the reality.

   5. HTHarj Taggar0:09

      You can, like, even be running a successful company and wake up one day and be like, "Holy shit, like-"

   6. GTGarry Tan0:14

      "I hate my life, I hate my job. I don't want to do this anymore."

   7. HTHarj Taggar0:16

      Yeah, right.

   8. GTGarry Tan0:17

      Yeah.

   9. GTGarry Tan0:17

      I think in, in these relationships that are so intense is where we get so hurt. Don't feel alone if you're going through this. It's actually very normal. I mean, this is why I think YC was special for me too.

   10. GTGarry Tan0:27

       I, like, almost repressed this memory over the years-

   11. HTHarj Taggar0:29

       (laughs)

   12. GTGarry Tan0:29

       ... because it's so embarrassing when I look back on it. Of course, like, it doesn't matter, and all that debate only led to a bad outcome anyway. Welcome back to another episode of The Light Cone. I'm Gary. This is Jared, Harj, and Diana. And collectively, we've funded companies worth hundreds of billions of dollars right when they're just a few people. And today, we're going to try something different. We're actually going to talk about co-founders, and specifically co-founder conflict. You know, how do you work through that, and what that means for your startup and actually for your life.

2. 1:09 – 2:25

   Why you should listen to this episode!

   1. GTGarry Tan1:10

      I feel like when I was starting my company, this is an episode that I would not have listened to, because I was like, "Ah, stupid, like, emotional crap."

   2. HTHarj Taggar1:20

      (laughs)

   3. GTGarry Tan1:20

      "I just want to, like, write code and, like, learn about technology." And if someone had, like, forced me to sit down and listen to an episode like this and really think about this kind of stuff, that would have been the number one most helpful thing in my startup. Because actually the thing that held us back were all people problems. They were all issues like the ones we're going to talk about.

   4. GTGarry Tan1:39

      Yeah. I mean, and that sort of makes sense, actually. I mean, what is a company if not people making pretty hard decisions, hundreds of them a week, maybe tens of thousands over the course of a year? And then these little decisions, you know, might be fraught, might be obvious, but either way, either it's the right decision or the wrong one, and then it compounds. And so when you look at, like, one of these unicorns or these, like, decacorn companies, these, you know, frankly, big tech companies that are worth a trillion dollars, those are the compounded decisions of, uh, co-founders, and you and your executives. And so it all comes back to the very simple thing, which is people in a room, uh, fighting, not fighting, fighting fairly, not fighting fairly.

3. 2:25 – 6:39

   Harj’s experience with Patrick Collison of Stripe

   1. GTGarry Tan2:25

      Maybe we could start with Harj, who, uh, famously was one of the co-founders with, uh, Patrick Collison of Stripe fame today. Uh, what was that like? (laughs)

   2. HTHarj Taggar2:37

      (laughs) Um, well, it was definitely a long time ago. So it was 2007, which is, what, 17-

   3. GTGarry Tan2:42

      Yeah.

   4. HTHarj Taggar2:43

      ... 18, 18 years ago now?

   5. GTGarry Tan2:44

      Yeah. How old were you? How old was Patrick? Like...

   6. HTHarj Taggar2:46

      Uh, how old was I? I would have been 21, uh, and I think Patrick would have been 18, I think. I, uh, the full, the full story in that case, um, was that I had actually applied to YC in late 2006 with my co-founder and my cousin, Korvir, um, and we were accepted into YC, I think, as the first international team. Um-

   7. GTGarry Tan3:14

      You were the first international team?

   8. HTHarj Taggar3:16

      Yeah. Uh-

   9. GTGarry Tan3:16

      Incredible.

   10. HTHarj Taggar3:17

       ... uh, I think there was maybe one Canadian team.

   11. GTGarry Tan3:19

       Yeah.

   12. HTHarj Taggar3:19

       But, um, don't know if that counts.

   13. GTGarry Tan3:20

       That, you know, yeah, 51st state-

   14. HTHarj Taggar3:21

       It's going to be an American team anyway. (laughs)

   15. GTGarry Tan3:24

       (laughs)

   16. GTGarry Tan3:24

       (laughs)

   17. HTHarj Taggar3:24

       So, yeah. Um, at the time, neither Korvir and I knew how to code or build software or do anything. Um, we'd, like, hired these, um, Eastern European contractors to build the whole website, and so a condition of being funded... Uh, I had started learning PHP and started, like, taking it over anyway, and so one of the conditions of YC funding us was that, like, we continue learning to program and, um, and build stuff. So we were accepted into YC in, like, winter 2007. I spent most of the time just, like, learning to code, learning to build software, like building our app and everything. Uh, but I-

   18. GTGarry Tan3:58

       Bozo.

   19. HTHarj Taggar3:58

       Bozo, yeah. We pivoted into Automatic during the batch, but at the end of YC, I knew that we probably still... It would be great to have someone else, like, working on the software besides me. Uh, and Paul Graham, the founder of YC, introduced us to this guy called Patrick.

   20. GTGarry Tan4:18

       So you were actually also the first co-founder match at YC.

   21. HTHarj Taggar4:21

       Yeah, actua-... Uh, not quite.

   22. GTGarry Tan4:23

       (laughs)

   23. HTHarj Taggar4:23

       If we're really doing this live. I mean, the first one was probably Aaron Schwartz, but... (laughs)

   24. GTGarry Tan4:27

       With Reddit?

   25. HTHarj Taggar4:28

       Yeah. (laughs)

   26. GTGarry Tan4:28

       Yeah. Yeah.

   27. HTHarj Taggar4:28

       So, um, it was a similar-ish situation in that, um, Patrick applied with this idea for, hey, like, eBay meets Wikipedia. Our startup had pivoted into tools for eBay powersellers. Um, and so PG was like, "Oh, like, you guys have this idea. You both want to kill eBay. You have this idea for building tools for sellers. Um, this other guy's got this idea for, like, building a better interface for finding products people want to buy. Um, you guys could use another programmer. Uh, he's, like, seems like a really great programmer. Why don't you, like, meet up and see, um, if you want to work together instead of Patrick doing the next batch, but as a separate company?" And so we, we met up in London at the time. He was in Ireland, and we went back, uh, from San Francisco, 'cause we didn't have visas to live out here. And we just got along really well. Uh, and we kind of did, like, I guess a shotgun marriage, where we were like, "Oh, hey," like, "yeah, this is, we like hanging out. We spend the weekend together. We should totally just, like, join forces and start the company."

   28. GTGarry Tan5:25

       And how'd that go?

   29. HTHarj Taggar5:26

       Um, it wasn't great. (laughs)

   30. GTGarry Tan5:29

       (laughs) Yeah.
4. 6:39 – 12:52

   Hard lessons Garry learned from Posterous

   1. GTGarry Tan6:39

      I also started, uh, Posterous with my co-founder, uh, thinking, "Oh, I'm, you know..." Some of it is like a little, I'm realizing, like, a little bit cultural. I was reading about how, you know, uh, East Asian cultures just have desire for high social conformity. And, um, you know, these are things that I didn't really examine. I was just like, "Oh, I'm just, you know, normal American kid, it's fine." But, uh, deep down, like, actually, yeah, I did not understand something about me, which is, I actually do want control. And the control comes from wanting to be able to fix it if, uh, it's broken. And I actually think that that w- that is what a- the CEO actually is signing up for, is like, if it is broken, it is up to me to fix it. And, uh, you know, if you're that archetype, and you're in a role where it is not up to you to fix it because you don't have the authority to actually make all, you know, those decisions when you have to, it just doesn't work out well, right? Like, you find yourself in these sort of situations where you know that you want to do X, but, you know, it's not your job, like, someone else wants to do Y. And then, you know, what do you do? You could just, like, live with it, I guess, or you could fight, or, you know, sometimes you just have to be CEO. (laughs)

   2. DHDiana Hu7:57

      So you were the CTO in-

   3. GTGarry Tan7:58

      At Posterous, yeah.

   4. DHDiana Hu7:59

      ... at Posterous. And when did you realize that about yourself and next time you didn't, you were the CEO?

   5. GTGarry Tan8:04

      Oh, honestly, like, I burnt out at my startup, and that's when I realized it. My startup story is funny because I feel like it was a misapplication of the advice that you often get or we, you know, frankly often give. It's like, in order for your startup to be great, you should, uh, try to have a great relationship with your founder. And, uh, I didn't know what that really meant actually. (laughs) I thought it meant, uh, get along with each other and, you know, maintain concordance. You know, like if I believe X but that other person believes Y, like, well, I could change what I think, and let's go with what they s- say. And that's not, uh, a good relationship. That's, like, lying down. Like, that is literally, um, self-abandonment. Uh, and then the weird thing that I just, you know, I did this for a couple years, in the background, I try, also tried to be, like, the hero coder. You know, I'd take modafinil and, you know, literally work 20 hours a day, and I'd do, you know, I'd try to hero design and hero code the whole thing. And then meanwhile, when we would have disagreements about product or what the users wanted or, you know, ultimately, uh, when our users sort of flat-lined, um, we had a, the deepest disagreement was like, "Well, what do we do from here?" And, uh, my co-founder wanted to turn it into Google Groups. And, um, I just sort of went along with it, you know? Well, I thought, like, "Well, I'm the CTO. And, uh, oh, you know, um, I only ha- you know, I'm the 40 in the 60/40 split, and I don't know if I want to fight over this." So, uh, I just sort of went along with it, and then, um, my body keeps the score. You know, there's this long-known, um, book called The Body Keeps the Score that talks about when you don't work trauma out properly, it just, like, sort of lives in your body, and it remembers. And so I actually had, like, a psychosomatic, uh, thing that happened where I couldn't sleep and I couldn't eat, and I couldn't even, like, bring myself to go to the office. Yeah, I learned the hard way. (laughs) I mean, uh, you know, luckily, again, like, also, you know, the great thing about Silicon Valley is, the company, we had, uh, my co-founder ended up selling it to, uh, Twitter for $20 million, and that was really meaningful for me. And, uh, by then, like, Harj and Jessica and PG had peeled me off of the ground. (laughs)

   6. HTHarj Taggar10:28

      (laughs)

   7. GTGarry Tan10:28

      (laughs) And brought me over to YC. So, I mean, the story ends well. And at the time, funny enough, like, I felt like the victim. And then now, like, with a lot of hindsight, like 15 years of hindsight, I realize, like, I shouldn't have blamed my co-founder. Like, I did all those things. I'm the one who self-abandoned the things that I knew. Um, I'm the one who, like, didn't say the thing that I knew in my heart. I imagine people are watching and, uh, maybe this is resonating for them. They're like, "I know this is not going, we're not making the right decisions, we're not going in the right way." My sort of thing for them is listen to that, right? This is a lot, a lot of this came from, like, my family, uh, upbringing and my situa- you know, my communication style was like the function of, um, the, my 10,000 hours of, uh, human intelligence training called my childhood. (laughs) And, you know, I think the more aware you are of what your sort of pre-training is like, um, the more you can actually prompt yourself to not be like that. And I think that that's something that I've worked really, really hard to change and change that about myself. But, you know, yeah, I, you know, I think the company could have been a 10 times or 100 times better outcome than that $20 million exit if, uh, I had figured that out at that right moment when we still could, you know, we were still had the mojo. Like, you know, people still knew what we were. You know, we could have done a lot of moves and ended up a little bit more like our friends at Weebly, um, who did, like, charge money, turned their very active user base into paying customers, and, uh, I think they sold to Square for like, at least...... 10X what we did, uh, and then Square stock, of course, went up another, (laughs) whole lot.

   8. DHDiana Hu12:13

      (laughs)

   9. GTGarry Tan12:14

      So, you know, they, they really did it the right way. I mean, I did this other thing at work also, like I'd take, uh, s- i- build up a lot of things, and then at the end of it, I'd blow s- blow it up. That's a thing that I'm also actively trying to really avoid, you know, 99% of the time. It's like something that I do have control over is, you know, if I don't self-abandon, then I don't like, sort of become into this like, pressure cooker situation, and then, uh, I'm not gonna blow up. Like, I, you know, what I want to do is be authoritative, like, how do I, you know, see something and say something at the moment that it happens instead of allowing it to like build up so much?

5. 12:52 – 15:46

   Authoritative vs authoritarian

   1. DHDiana Hu12:52

      Y- you have a great line that you often say around h- here, Garry, about authoritative versus authoritarian. U- Um, maybe you can share the principle. I think it's like a, like a deep thing.

   2. GTGarry Tan13:00

      Yeah, I mean, founders in particular, like they're, your organization will just build up around like how you approach things and how you talk about things and how you think about things. And so, you know, self-abandonment is kind of obvious, like you just, you know, you're getting paid the big bucks. Like, you have equity, like, (laughs) you know, you are there to render an opinion and, you know, w- your feelings matter and count. Um, so, you know, self-abandonment kind of obviously is bad. Uh, and then way over on the other end, um, is sort of, uh, being authoritarian, right? So that's not listening to anyone ever, uh, jumping to conclusions. Um, you know, one of the deeper things that I have now learned is that, uh, every decision, you know, might be fraught, might not be, uh, you need to give it enough space and time for it to happen. And so for me, I was a conflict avoidant. I wanted everyone to get along, and, uh, that desire would sometimes cause me to short circuit all the things I needed to do to get to a good resolution. And so being authoritarian in that case is basically like skipping ahead to the end result. You're like, "Well, you know, I can't hold this conflict. This is too uncomfortable. Like, I don't like that people think this thing and, you know, I don't agree, so I, I, I'm just going to like, we're just gonna do this," right? And then that's not leadership. That's just, you know, sort of disregarding the people around you. The be- much better version is actually have a debate. Like, it's good to have, uh, healthy conflict where people, you know, say what's going on. And, uh, I regret that, right? Like, uh, going back to my moment with my co-founder, Asit Agarwal with Posterous, like if I could time travel myself back to that moment, there's no reason why we couldn't have had that conversation. And, you know, um, I didn't need to control the outcome. Like y- you know, I, I didn't really need to be CEO in that moment to have a better outcome than the outcome that came out, right? Like, uh, we could have had that conversation. We could have made that choice together. And, uh, you know, because I burnt out, I, because I couldn't show up to work anymore, um, I short-circuited it and, you know, it ended up in self-abandonment again. (laughs)

   3. DHDiana Hu15:15

      (laughs) .

   4. GTGarry Tan15:15

      Um, and then if you think about any company that you're running, like, you know, we are operating in these sort of uncertain moments where, you know, there's door A and door B. Everyone has different feelings about it. And so the important part is like, can you sit down with the people who you trust and really care about and, you know, you have your shared goal and then have like a good faith argument about it and then come to an agreement. And that's like what authoritative to me means.

6. 15:46 – 19:47

   Startup pressures lead to self discovery

   1. DHDiana Hu15:46

      I think a lot of what you're saying, Garry, resonated, resonates with my journey too. I think a lot of the journey with a co-founder is so intense because you're going through the high pressure of both of you really wanting to see this company succeed. You're pulling insane hours, you may not be sleeping.

   2. GTGarry Tan16:05

      That's bad. Yeah, people should sleep. (laughs)

   3. DHDiana Hu16:07

      People should sleep. And you're also going through all these very intense decisions. And maybe up to that point, I didn't have the need to self-examine too much.

   4. GTGarry Tan16:19

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DHDiana Hu16:20

      And it's that pressure cooker that I realized patterns about myself that I didn't know, like you describe, same thing, we all have different history. We all come pre-trained with our model, with certain default settings. My case, I was also grew up as an immigrant, and I think the safe thing is not to speak up and it's just not rock the boat, keep things stable, right? So like you, there was things that I would not agree, but I would just not voice them.

   6. GTGarry Tan16:48

      Mm-hmm.

   7. DHDiana Hu16:48

      Because it was not safe from what I was trained on, from-

   8. GTGarry Tan16:52

      Yeah.

   9. DHDiana Hu16:52

      ... my upbringing. And, uh, that kind of built up, right? R- and I think it was a process of really, it was a bit of a gift to go into the journey of more self-discovery. I wish I could have resolved things better, and it's still a work in progress to be able to sort of speak up. And it's a journey of, I think in, in these relationships that are so intense is where we get so hurt too, because we both want it so badly in a different direction. But I think it's also in these same relationships that we eventually heal too.

   10. GTGarry Tan17:27

       Yeah.

   11. DHDiana Hu17:27

       Where I think if, if you make it, we all, we all make it-

   12. GTGarry Tan17:32

       Mm-hmm.

   13. DHDiana Hu17:32

       ... is for, the message for everyone is that don't feel alone if you're going through this. It's actually very normal. I mean, this is why I think YC was special for me too. I could talk to other YC founders like, "Oh, I'm not crazy." (laughs)

   14. GTGarry Tan17:44

       Mm-hmm.

   15. DHDiana Hu17:45

       There's that, and feeling that you're not alone. And the other part is like, okay, maybe up to this point before the startup, I was successful. I was, I got by enough with how I operated in this world, but this new level of intensity, it needed to, I needed to gain more control or power over myself and gain more, more of these kind of skills that are new. And it's like a journey of becoming a better version for yourself, which is a gift. And that's the thing that...If I were to give advice to myself is, you're not alone and it's okay to kind of get more support. And as you talk to your co-founder, conflict will happen. Every relationship (laughs) it, it's normal, right?

   16. GTGarry Tan18:32

       Diana, do you have, um, a recollection of like a particular conflict or was it like s- strategic or could be tactical, like things that were just like, "Well, I believe X and this other person, you know, who I co-founded-

   17. DHDiana Hu18:44

       Hmm.

   18. GTGarry Tan18:45

       ... this with is, believes Y?"

   19. DHDiana Hu18:47

       I mean, in retrospect, I don't think they matter that much. It's kind of-

   20. GTGarry Tan18:50

       Yeah.

   21. DHDiana Hu18:50

       ... the irony when we forward-

   22. GTGarry Tan18:52

       That's a good point.

   23. DHDiana Hu18:53

       ... 10 years later is like, it could have been fine, but it just they felt so life and death back then.

   24. GTGarry Tan18:58

       Hmm, that's interesting.

   25. DHDiana Hu18:59

       I, because I'm living there, it's like, I don't know, 4K television version of it. (laughs)

   26. GTGarry Tan19:03

       Mm-hmm.

   27. DHDiana Hu19:04

       Now in retrospect, little details of how to run the team or that is like, "Okay, I think it's fine as long as we get the high level strategic direction right."

   28. GTGarry Tan19:13

       Yeah.

   29. DHDiana Hu19:13

       Which I think we did. So it was just being more, more engaging in the debate and being more open.

   30. GTGarry Tan19:20

       That's a good point. Yeah, any given moment, well, you have your ego, you have yourself, you have like your concept of yourself, and then all of that is wrapped up into like your identity, which then merges with the startup. And then the weirdest thing that sometimes with co-founders happens is, um, if it doesn't go well, then uh, it couldn't be me, it's got to be this other person. (laughs)
7. 19:47 – 24:24

   The importance of conflict resolution skills

   1. JFJared Friedman19:47

      an equally dysfunctional relationship, but the diametric opposite. So I started my company with a friend from college, and we're both like American kids who grew up in sort of a classic American household and, and we were both probably pretty spoiled by our parents-

   2. GTGarry Tan20:01

      (laughs)

   3. JFJared Friedman20:01

      ... and probably both pretty used to getting our own way.

   4. GTGarry Tan20:03

      (laughs)

   5. JFJared Friedman20:03

      If I think about our, (laughs) our pre-training and you can imagine how that played out over the summer. We basically fought like cats and dogs on every issue. I remember, in particular, speaking of trivial issues, so our company was called Scribd, and Scribd is a terrible name for a startup. No one can pronounce it and no one can spell it. It was like a thorn in our side for like 20 years. And the reason that we ended up with this horrible name is that we could not agree on what to call the company.

   6. DHDiana Hu20:30

      (laughs)

   7. JFJared Friedman20:30

      We literally fought about it the entire YC batch. We probably spent tens of hours debating what to call the company. It got so bad we had to call in Paul Graham to mediate the dispute because we were unable to launch because we could not agree on what to call the thing we were about to launch. And I like, I like almost repressed this memory over the years-

   8. GTGarry Tan20:49

      (laughs)

   9. JFJared Friedman20:49

      ... because it's so embarrassing when I look back on it. Of course, like it doesn't matter and all that debate only led to a bad outcome anyway. This is something that I do see with a lot of the college age founders that we fund. Um, you know, we fund all, you know, we...

   10. DHDiana Hu21:06

       (laughs)

   11. JFJared Friedman21:06

       They were at the college age when we started our company and I, I've just seen that like a lot of them, just like, you know, like me, me and my co-founder, we just had not developed good conflict resolution skills at the time. And so like, we would never do that if we were starting a company again now, because we've like learned how to let the little things slide. We've learned just like how to, how to solve things like that. But at the time we just like hadn't learned that yet. And so we would just go round and round in circles.

   12. GTGarry Tan21:32

       Well, how do people end up learning that? Like what, you know, one of the tools that I feel like I had to learn was, uh, it's going to s- make me sound so therapy brain, but you know, I, I actually really like this book, uh, called Non-Violent Communication, 'cause you know, a lot of the arguments that you're having is like, I have a certain mental worldview of how this is working and this other person has a different one. And then, uh, in that context, like non-violent communication talks about how you are totally free to talk about what's going on over here. But if Harj and I are fighting, like it's not fair for me to speculate or say, uh, anything about like his intentions or his motivations. So if I were like, what's a concrete example? It's like, "Harj, like you just think that I suck at vibe coding, don't you?"

   13. DHDiana Hu22:19

       (laughs) That's a judgment.

   14. GTGarry Tan22:20

       Yeah.

   15. JFJared Friedman22:20

       Yeah.

   16. GTGarry Tan22:20

       And so that kind of, you know, thing honestly like, I mean whether you're married or like in a co-founder relationship, like it's very easy to fall into that type of trap.

   17. DHDiana Hu22:31

       It's just learning to be better humans, right?

   18. GTGarry Tan22:33

       Yeah.

   19. DHDiana Hu22:33

       And a lot of it is we don't know really what's people's intentions because those are really within them. And sometimes we ourselves are not aware, but what's observable is the behavior of what people do and how you feel. And those are okay things to

   20. SPSpeaker22:49

       Yeah.

   21. DHDiana Hu22:49

       ... call. I mean, things that I eventually learned to do with managing people and engineers, is not to say, "Hey, you're a bad engineer." That's just really demotivating for your report, right? Or your co-founder is like, "Oh, you suck at coding." That's just not helpful. What is helpful is like, "Hey, I saw you checked in this code and it didn't do the QA test and other unit tests as we had agreed. This is something that we can improve on, right?" And if you do, then we have to test it less and all, and it's better for everyone. So I think the framework has to do with pointing specific things that people can improve instead of making broad strokes that kind of almost do a bit of a character assassination, because people make mistakes and part of it is pointing specific behaviors. And then the other thing is giving them a carrot, "If you do it and change it, this is how it's good for everyone." That's part of the NVC that makes it a win-win, shaping a lot of the specific behaviors and things that make it people can act on and is less, less of an attack, right? Because it's not... It's nothing about me fundamentally as a person or as an engineer, it's just a thing that I did and sometimes m- I'm not s- I'm not sure how it happened but whatever, but let's just get the output to be fixed. However you do it, if you do it, we can win this way. So that's how a lot of what I learned about getting better feedback, which I think is similar phr- framework from the NVC and there's this touchy feely class from Stanford where they talk about n- throwing things over the net.

   22. JFJared Friedman24:22

       Yeah.

   23. DHDiana Hu24:23

       Uh, uh, describing

8. 24:24 – 27:15

   The concept of “over the net”

   1. DHDiana Hu24:24

      the net. Do you want to describe the net?

   2. HTHarj Taggar24:25

      I think the idea is it's basically, like, in any communication, there's, like, sort of your reality, like, or the way you're experiencing it and all the assumptions you're making about what's going on. Um, and then there's the other side. And, like, in conflict, it's totally fine for me to talk about everything on my side of the net, like, in the- in- from the frame of here's, like, how I'm feeling. Here's kind of like ... here's how it feels when you say unload a good vibe coder. Like, um, so I'm all, like, this is my area, I can talk about it as much as I want. Um, but I can't go over the net, which is like-

   3. DHDiana Hu24:59

      You're a bad engineer or something like that.

   4. HTHarj Taggar25:00

      Yeah. O- or try and tell you- like try and tell the other person, like, what they're feeling or what they're thinking. Um, and like, I think there's a real natural human tendency to do that. Like, you- you assume that, like, if Gary says I'm a bad vibe coder, it's because he's, like, wants to hurt me and he's mad at me or, like, something like that. And that- that's the concept of going over the net is like, I don't know what's going on in his head actually, and the only way I can understand it is to, like, ask him directly versus making lots of assumptions.

   5. DHDiana Hu25:32

      Yeah, you don't know. The only thing that you can do is the observe thing that maybe the- the code that was shipped with vibe coding did this or that. But not the intention behind it, right? That's- that's the concept over the net, which is overall good communication with- with anyone, not just for managing co-founders, significant others, friendships. Just to be overall a better human.

   6. GTGarry Tan25:55

      Yeah. I think you spend so much time with, uh, your co-founder, uh, or your spouse honestly, that like, you can easily get into this moment where it's like very a- like one on one adversarial. The bad version of this i- it just sort of becomes like tit for tat. All of the arguments sort of like bleed over, right? That's like probably a really good tell for something's wrong and maybe you should get, you know, uh, an exec coach in there to help you, like, work through these things. 'Cause basically if it's like every conflict is like an everything conflict, you're like, okay, well whether or not this, uh, button is red or blue, like if you- if you view that conflict in the context of like all the other conflicts you've had that week, month or like in your entire life, there's bleed over. And then can you imagine, like how are you gonna make a good decision about like whether that button is like red or blue? Like it's- it's not really about whether it's red or blue, it's about like who wins and, you know, is there a point system. Like, well last time you won this time. So ... And it's like at that point, like hey, what about the mission? (laughs) Like what about the thing that we're out here to do which is, you know, get users and make something people want. Like, you know, where does this decision fit within that or am I just like in an adversarial position with someone else.

   7. HTHarj Taggar27:11

      The idea of sort of like the pre-training or just like the- the context

9. 27:15 – 34:53

   The cultures you come from (work and personal) matter a lot

   1. HTHarj Taggar27:15

      I think is a really interesting one. Like if I think- if I think back to my experiences, first startup it was like long, long time ago now. But, um, I actually think, so when I think of myself and Patrick and then Kaveh, like in many ways we actually had similar communications style. We never actually had any, like, outright major arguments or like shouting matches or anything like that. I think we all actually got along really, really well. And actually anytime we were talking about anything other than the startup, it was great. And I still have like very happy memories of that. Like we had like similar intellectual interests and it was just like great. Um, but I think when it came to like the startup, like fundamentally what was just going on is I think we were at a point where no one was- no one could really be motivated to the max or I think like do their best work unless they were actually like the CEO and had the final say on things. So I think the way it manifested in that context was just I don't think any of us were going 110%. And then-

   2. GTGarry Tan28:10

      Each of you went on to become CEO yourselves.

   3. HTHarj Taggar28:12

      Yeah, exactly. Um, and then like the second time around, I think one thing that I learned was just, yeah, like the- the context that people have or like the cultures they've come up in, both personal and work matter a ton. And they're like a very concrete example. Um, my co-founders with Triplebyte, like my second startup were early employees at Justin.TV which would later become Twitch. Um, Justin.TV was notorious for- or was known for having a early culture of like extreme aggressive heated debates. And it started with sort of s- two of the co-founders in particular. But it was just part of the culture was that you would just, like the co-founders would just like shout at each other and scream at each other and like and that employee- and that was just kind of normal. And so my two co-founders, this was their first job out of college. Um, and so they kind of just thought that it was-

   4. GTGarry Tan29:07

      If you're not shouting.

   5. HTHarj Taggar29:08

      That's how you do. That's just how startups work.

   6. JFJared Friedman29:10

      Yeah. It's just like-

   7. HTHarj Taggar29:10

      It's just people like screaming and shouting at each other all the time. (laughs)

   8. GTGarry Tan29:14

      It can work. I mean if it's an opt-in culture, I guess.

   9. HTHarj Taggar29:17

      Yeah. Yeah.

   10. JFJared Friedman29:17

       I don't know if it was actually shouting. My- my- my mental image of it was more like vigorous debate, like- like debate society debate. Not like- not like-

   11. HTHarj Taggar29:26

       From what I've heard, it was both. (laughs)

   12. JFJared Friedman29:27

       ... like Steve Ballmer like throwing chairs at each other. (laughs)

   13. HTHarj Taggar29:32

       E- either ... Whatever the detail is, I think like if you grow up in like you have like this one type of culture where it's just okay outright extreme aggressive debate is kind of the way you get to the truth and you win, is not the culture that I can really work particularly well in. I think if I'm in an environment where like there's people like shouting and screaming, I kind of just like- like can't really think clearly. To me it's like shouting and just kind of like overly heated debate just means you can't think clearly about stuff and so you're just gonna make bad decisions. And like not sort of making a judgment on like what's right or wrong but it's like if you have like one view of hey, like this is kind of what this culture means, like oh we're gonna make bad decisions. And the other person kind of feels like oh, well like this is the only way you can make good decisions, like that is just gonna constantly create-... conflict between co-founders so they don't have, like, shared context.

   14. DHDiana Hu30:19

       How did you ... When did you figure that out? Because there's a lot of, uh, self-examination when you decide to go into a new co-founder relationship-

   15. HTHarj Taggar30:25

       I mean, I think it was pretty-

   16. DHDiana Hu30:26

       ... and then figuring this out.

   17. HTHarj Taggar30:27

       ... obvious, uh, well, it, this was, for me, was an example of just, you can know people in social context and then, like, the work context is very, very different.

   18. DHDiana Hu30:34

       Mm-hmm.

   19. HTHarj Taggar30:34

       So, I know, I knew both my Triplebyte co-founders for kind of years before we started the company. But only ever probably more in, like, social low-stress, like-

   20. DHDiana Hu30:43

       Mm-hmm.

   21. HTHarj Taggar30:43

       ... environments. Um, people are very, very different in, like, high-stress environments, and I think this is one of the things we see in the batches too, is like, you should generally found a company with people you know, but it's still not like a guarantee that it's gonna work out because you might have been, like, social friends, um, and you've only ever hung out, like, watching movies and playing chess and doing fun stuff, so you don't-

   22. DHDiana Hu31:04

       Exactly.

   23. HTHarj Taggar31:05

       ... know how you're actually going to react under stress.

   24. JFJared Friedman31:07

       And how did that play out with Triplebyte, Harsh?

   25. HTHarj Taggar31:09

       Yeah, I think it's kind of, in high-stress situ- well, once we were in high-stress situations, of which there are many in a startup, um, yeah, like I, it was sort of the dynamic would always be the way my co-founders handle it, or I think, like, would get the best out of themselves is, like, aggressive debate.

   26. DHDiana Hu31:27

       You get it. (laughs)

   27. HTHarj Taggar31:27

       And for me, it's like, I think we should just, like, calm down and maybe write out our thoughts, or just like-

   28. JFJared Friedman31:32

       (laughs)

   29. HTHarj Taggar31:32

       (laughs) It's like a totally different, um, and so just like a total mash of styles. And I think my way of handling it, I mean, it was pretty apparent pretty quickly. I guess, my way of handling it was, I should adapt and, like, um, and maybe there's something I can learn from, like, that culture and the sort of, in general, a lot of my desires to do a startup was, like, personal growth and, like, wanting to get better. I was like, "Okay, well, it'd probably be helpful for me if I can, like, just get better at handling, like, more aggressive debate." And so I will just, like, sort of mold myself into being able to, like, do that and handle it. And I do actually think there was value in that, like I certainly, like, there is certainly value in me able to, like, handle more aggressive debate and just, like, a different culture. But I think the way it then played out is, like, four or five years into the startup, it was actually just a huge tax on me personally, and sort of part of the reason I kind of burnt out and just decided I wanted to move on and hand over the CEO reins, was like, uh, like I'm just, like, exhausted. Like, actually for me, kind of like being in this culture and kind of trying to always be like the bring-it-back-to-the-middle or turn-the-temperature-down, it was just exhausting for me personally.

   30. DHDiana Hu32:40

       What advice would you give to co-founder relationships that have this? There's, there's all these unknown unknowns that only play out in high-stress scenarios, and how do you grow towards each other to make it actually effective for the company and be there in the long run?
10. 34:53 – 36:07

    Founders should get outside help

    1. DHDiana Hu34:53

       I think that's what's very well said. I think part of the journey is that, which, for a lot of foundering teams, I think they should really get a lot of help outside of the company as well. I do think founders should probably get, at some point, like a coach, a therapist to examine a lot of these things, because a lot of these are kind of brewing in the background and you don't even know how to articulate it, how to put it into words, what framework to use to even know that you're going through this transition, this is happening, this is what is needed of me at this point. And you kind of need this partner, outside partner, to hold a mirror for you to know that, "Hey, Harsh, you're going through this, it was fine to mold yourself, the company got to this point, but you got to make home for yourself to be able to live in it for a long run for a company." Because the founder's the one that's going to stay. So what are the things that you need to keep changing? And it's a, as founders, it's a very tough position to be in, you have to keep reinventing.

    2. HTHarj Taggar35:47

       Yeah, I agree with that. Therapy, therapy definitely helped me introspect on a lot of this stuff. I think if I had started therapy sooner, I would probably, yeah, I would have stopped adapting myself much sooner.

    3. DHDiana Hu35:57

       Yeah.

    4. GTGarry Tan35:57

       Yeah, I wish I did it just 'cause like I started the company and I'm like, "I'm normal, I'm fine." Like, "I'm just like everyone else," like, "I have no problems." And it turns out, like, that was not correct.

11. 36:07 – 39:53

    Why you should still find a co-founder despite the challenges

    1. JFJared Friedman36:07

       So guys, I could imagine there could be some people who are listening to this and they're thinking to themselves, wow, this co-founder shit seems like really hard and like a lot of work.

    2. HTHarj Taggar36:15

       (laughs)

    3. JFJared Friedman36:15

       Like, screw that. (laughs) Like, I'm just gonna not have a co-founder so I don't have to deal with all this bullshit. What would you say? Like, no, I mean like, I'm, I'm kidding but like I'm also serious.

    4. GTGarry Tan36:25

       Oh, it's totally a serious thing.

    5. JFJared Friedman36:26

       Like, like, like I, like I, I actually think a lot of people feel that way. What would you say to those people?

    6. GTGarry Tan36:31

       I think, uh, the uncomfortable thing to say that I think is true is, um, only the truly superlative, uh, founders end up making products and services that are superlative.Like it or not, in order to create something of great value like that, uh, game recognizes game. So, when pe- like, when someone is truly, like, recognizably good as an engineer, or as a designer, or as a product person, or as a CEO, or salesperson, or whatever, it gets easier to find a co-founder because other people are like, "That's the person who is, like, the best person I've ever worked with." The act of starting a company is like getting into a rowboat, and it's like, "We're gonna row out in the middle of the sea and we're gonna find, like, you know, the island of gold," right? (laughs)

    7. HTHarj Taggar37:20

       Mm-hmm.

    8. GTGarry Tan37:20

       And it's like, do you want the other people in that rowboat to be the most capable people who are, like, super fierce and, like, you know, never say no? Or do you want them to be okay? (laughs) And so, I, you know, you know, we've been talking about a lot of the psychological parts of it, but a co-founder, you know, is a little bit of a test. Like, are you yourself, like, someone who someone else would say, "Hey," like, "that person's the best at that thing," and like, "Let's go do this thing." Like, game recognizes game, like attracts like, and, uh, some of it is like, man, if someone's having a really hard time finding a co-founder, the advice might actually be, like, "You're not at the edge of, uh, human capability yet, and, uh, you know, that's okay." Like, you know, some of it is, like, find a way to get there.

    9. HTHarj Taggar38:07

       Hm.

    10. GTGarry Tan38:08

        Because then, you will find, uh, the other people who are, you know, sort of rolling in that direction, and you'll just look to the left or right, and it's like, you guys will recognize each other, and then you'll be able to create something really great. But I mean, the oth- the other reason to have co-founders that, that, like, I think just bears out is, like, a bad co-founder is, uh, definitely worse than being solo, but the best possible world is, like, having someone who is alongside you, who is, mega gets you. And when you're having a bad, the worst day, you know, and everyone does, like, you know, ideally your co-founder is there to just pull you up and, like, likewise. And, um, you can go way farther for way longer and create way more awesome things with people who, you know, hey, they're your people. Startups that work are so rare, you sort of need it all. Like, you kind of need, like, every possible advantage you can get.

    11. HTHarj Taggar39:04

        Yeah, going for no co-founder is just sort of a limiting downside-type optimization, and that's just, like, not the right way to think about startups. Yeah, to your point, like yes, you will have less stress in theory if you don't have a co-founder, but then, yeah, the truly exceptional breakout companies have a really great healthy co-founder relationship. Yeah, it's the same, I mean, it's, it's a variant of the, like, why do people raise VC funding argument, where it's like, "Uh, you don't have to raise VC funding." Like, "You just, like, grow, um, you could grow, like, within your revenues," for example. It's like, you totally could, but yeah, you have to kind of, you have to play to win, and actually, like, the way to win is to attract all the resources. It's to, like, get the capital to get the best people to win the market and be dominant and take it all.

    12. GTGarry Tan39:48

        Yeah, if you don't play to win, someone else is gonna play to win, and guess who's gonna win? (laughs)

    13. HTHarj Taggar39:51

        Yeah. Mm-hmm.

    14. GTGarry Tan39:52

        I think Harj and I, like, texted

12. 39:53 – 43:14

    Outro + YC Summer Fellow Grants

    1. GTGarry Tan39:53

       this to each other once. It's, uh, you know, if you don't want to have people problems, then, you know, you need to live on an island totally alone with no one. (laughs)

    2. HTHarj Taggar40:01

       This is, this is the, um, Rene Adler, um, philosophy. It's basically just, like, all problems are actually, like, people problems and interpersonal problems, um, and that if you want to have no problems then, yeah, like, go live alone on an island-

    3. GTGarry Tan40:18

       (laughs)

    4. HTHarj Taggar40:18

       ... and you'll have (laughs) like, theoretically no problems. (laughs)

    5. GTGarry Tan40:22

       Yeah. (laughs)

    6. HTHarj Taggar40:22

       Uh, but yeah, if you actually want to live any form of, like, fulfilling life, you have to, you need to be part of a society and a group of people, and you have to work through the problems and get good at dealing with them and get good at handling conflict, and, and working with other people if you want to achieve anything.

    7. GTGarry Tan40:40

       Yeah. I mean, all the things we've been talking about, like, you know, I mean, I think we've been pretty vulnerable and talked about, like, some pretty painful things, but, uh, that's the fun a little bit. Like, that is literally the work. Like, um, Alan Watts has a saying where it's like, "A lot of people in modern society run around and, uh, they're just trying to get to the end." They're like, "Oh, my God, like, let me get to the, all the way to the end," like, you know, "I need to get done with this," right? And then that's sort of like going to a symphony and just, like, instead of the concert playing out, they just play the crescendo, zhush, at the end, and that's it. Everyone files in. It just goes like, mm, and then that's it, you're done. And it's like, no, that's not... You know, like, the, the journey is actually, uh, the fun part, like, the act of being, you know, not going over the net. Like, you can't learn to play tennis and not go over the net if you have no one on the other side of this. And so, yeah, uh, I mean, whether it's, uh, co-founders or, uh, in your, you know, relationships, I don't know, it feels like all the same lessons a little bit. And, um, this is one game that is, uh, actually worth playing. With that, we'll see you guys next time on The Light Cone. (instrumental music)

    8. HTHarj Taggar41:58

       I'm excited to announce that this summer YC will be giving grants to college students to work on their own technical projects. We're calling these the Summer Fellows Grants. We think now is the best time for students to spend the summer working on things they find technically interesting. Ambitious technical college students can now build something important before the summer is even over. The grants will be $20,000 in cash and another $90,000 in compute credits from Microsoft, Google, and Amazon. Each Summer Fellow will get to attend YC's AI Startup School in June, and we'll also host some in-person coworking days at the YC office in June and August. At the end of the summer, you'll present what you've built to everyone. We're most interested in funding technical projects that are using AI in new ways, but we're happy to fund anything that smart programmers find interesting. The grants are available to any undergraduate computer science or engineering students, including freshmen and students outside the US. Our goal is to give you the freedom to work on your own projects independently and meet some other smart students while you're doing it. If this sounds interesting to you, please submit an application telling us about the most interesting technical project you've worked on so far and what you're thinking about working on this summer. If you don't have a project in mind yet, just tell us about the technical things you find interesting and have been thinking about recently. Thanks.

Episode duration: 43:14