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Y CombinatorY Combinator

The Student's Guide To Becoming A Successful Startup Founder

If you're a high school or college student with big dreams of starting your own company, this video is for you. Dalton Caldwell and Michael Seibel, two startup founders who started in the early 20s and are now top investors, sit down to share the hard-won advice they wish they had known back in high school. Whether you're already running your own startup or just have an idea you can't stop thinking about, Caldwell and Seibel will discuss the skills you need to learn now and how to set yourself up for success after graduating school. Their stories will give you a glimpse of what's truly possible at the intersection of ambition and opportunity in in today's world. This is a masterclass in entrepreneurship for the next generation. Apply to Y Combinator: https://yc.link/DandM-apply Work at a Startup: https://yc.link/DandM-jobs Chapters (Powered by https://bit.ly/chapterme) - 00:00 - Intro 01:12 - Delayed Gratification 02:23 - Learn to Code 04:17 - Learn Design 04:52 - Launch Products 06:49 - Make Friends 08:04 - School Sandbox 09:13 - Learn To Care 11:20 - Credential Game 13:35 - Fads That Stick 15:42 - Be Excited 17:50 - Be Honest 20:08 - Love The Long Games 23:46 - Live Your Dream

Dalton CaldwellhostMichael Seibelhost
Apr 14, 202324mWatch on YouTube ↗

Summaries, chapters, transcripts, and FAQs on this page are made by uListen, not YouTube.

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

  1. 0:00 – 1:12

    Intro

    1. DC

      Your job is to be an optimist. Your job is to believe amazing things about what can you do with your life and what can you do in the world when you're young.

    2. MS

      Yes.

    3. DC

      That's, that's the point.

    4. MS

      That's the point. That's why the world needs young people. [laughs] This is Michael Seibel with Dalton Caldwell, and today we're gonna talk about our advice for high schoolers.

    5. DC

      Uh-oh.

    6. MS

      It's been a little while.

    7. DC

      [laughs]

    8. MS

      It's been a little while. [laughs] So maybe the place to start, 'cause I think that, um, oftentimes young people are in a rush, maybe we can just start by saying the startup game isn't going away.

    9. DC

      That's true.

    10. MS

      You've got time.

    11. DC

      And look, I think to set this up, we know a lot of young people watch these videos.

    12. MS

      Yes.

    13. DC

      We know they like startup content. We know they, um, may even anonymously be involved in startups on Discord and stuff.

    14. MS

      Sure, sure, sure.

    15. DC

      Like, it, it's crazy, for the folks that apply to YC, a lot of them are, are-

    16. MS

      Yep

    17. DC

      ... literally in high school.

    18. MS

      Yep.

    19. DC

      And so we, we understand who you are if you're watching this, or if you know someone like this you can forward them the video.

    20. MS

      Yes.

    21. DC

      But we wanna speak directly to you high school students who are-

    22. MS

      Yes, yes

    23. DC

      ... who are trying to figure out, who are ambitious and wanna be a part of what's happening in the tech world, in the, you know, startup world-

    24. MS

      Yep

    25. DC

      ... and aren't really sure where to begin.

    26. MS

      Yes.

  2. 1:12 – 2:23

    Delayed Gratification

    1. MS

      Maybe the first analogy I give you, and, and this will immediately age me, so I apologize. I was a big Final Fantasy VII player. You play Fin- FF VII?

    2. DC

      A little bit.

    3. MS

      Of course. All right. The basic thing I learned in Final Fantasy VII was that you can fight the boss at a certain level and get your ass kicked.

    4. DC

      [laughs]

    5. MS

      Or you can grind for, like, you know, 10 more hours and fight the boss and actually, like, kick their ass. And I think that this analogy applies to a lot of things in the real world, and specifically in the startup world, where, like, investing and leveling yourself up can produce a lot of benefits later on. Like, deferring a little bit of that satisfaction of getting started right now so you can up-skill makes you 10 times more powerful later. But let's be clear, you have to be up-skilling during that time. [laughs]

    6. DC

      Yeah, you gotta be grinding.

    7. MS

      You gotta be grinding.

    8. DC

      Like, the grind has to happen.

    9. MS

      Exactly. [laughs] If I just sit there and didn't grind, my character got no better. [laughs] And what's cool, in a video game you see grinding. It's a lot easier.

    10. DC

      Yeah, your le- you can see the character-

    11. MS

      You can s-

    12. DC

      ... leveling up.

    13. MS

      Exactly.

    14. DC

      Like, learning new spells or whatever.

    15. MS

      E- exactly.

    16. DC

      Yeah.

    17. MS

      But, um, in the real world, let's talk a little bit about grinding.

  3. 2:23 – 4:17

    Learn to Code

    1. MS

      What's the kinda grinding, what's the kind of up-skilling that you would advise high schoolers to do?

    2. DC

      Well, the most obvious and straightforward one is learn how to code.

    3. MS

      Obvious.

    4. DC

      Like, it's pretty tricky. Even if you think, hey, I'm not gonna be a... A lot of people say to me, the younger folks, "Oh, I don't wanna be a coder my whole life. I wanna be a founder, I wanna be a product person." Well, you should still learn how to code. [laughs] Like, there's, it's really hard to make an argument-

    5. MS

      Yes

    6. DC

      ... if you're a young person why you shouldn't have that skill in your skill tree. Can you make a case why you wouldn't?

    7. MS

      How do you make the case?

    8. DC

      [laughs]

    9. MS

      I was the business guy who didn't know how to code. And literally, I would say there are many moments in the early stage of a company where I felt borderline useless, and certainly I didn't have the power to impact the product anywhere near as much as my other three co-founders who were, who were software engineers. So, like, this is such an obvious one. [laughs]

    10. DC

      Yeah, and you got time.

    11. MS

      Yes.

    12. DC

      Like, this is a great thing.

    13. MS

      Yes.

    14. DC

      AP computer science.

    15. MS

      Yes.

    16. DC

      You can take Replit. Like, there's all these YC companies-

    17. MS

      Yes

    18. DC

      ... that help people learn how to code.

    19. MS

      Code Academy, there's so many. Yes.

    20. DC

      So even if you have some complicated relationship with maybe I don't wanna be a programmer, that's fine.

    21. MS

      Yes.

    22. DC

      Learn the skill.

    23. MS

      Yes.

    24. DC

      This is like, it's like learning how to cast spells or something. [laughs]

    25. MS

      Well, I'll push even harder. Like, get this complicated view of I don't wanna be a coder out of your head. Like, the coders are the most powerful people inside of software companies. Like, that's the hint. The people who code are the most powerful people inside the s-

    26. DC

      They're the most highly compensated, they're the hardest to replace.

    27. MS

      They often have the best ideas. They often have the be- the easiest, the easiest path to implementing their ideas, by far. [laughs] Like, they're the power center. The talkers, not as much.

    28. DC

      Yeah. Sometimes people on this coding thing, they're like, "Well, I didn't grow up coding," or, "I wasn't, like, a 13-year-old whiz kid like people I know in high school."

    29. MS

      Doesn't matter.

    30. DC

      I'm just trying to argue you don't need to be that.

  4. 4:17 – 4:52

    Learn Design

    1. MS

      two, um, we talked about this a little bit. Design. Learning how to use basic design software.

    2. DC

      Yeah.

    3. MS

      This is one that kind of blows my mind because when I think back to my startups, I had to power up, you know, Photoshop. We used this thing called Ramp back in the day. Like, basically if a button needed to be made and we didn't have a designer-

    4. DC

      It was on you.

    5. MS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    6. DC

      [laughs]

    7. MS

      Make the button, you know? Like, it didn't even have to look that good. Um, and so this is a skill that anyone can grasp for, and, like, there's examples of good design and bad design-

    8. DC

      Yeah

    9. MS

      ... all over the internet, right? So you can easily copy.

  5. 4:52 – 6:49

    Launch Products

    1. MS

      I think the third one is launching products. Like, man, if you could get a product out, it doesn't have to be used by any people, doesn't have... But just, like, actually going through the full motion of coming up with an idea for a little side project and releasing it and handing it to someone.

    2. DC

      'Cause you're doing reps.

    3. MS

      Yes.

    4. DC

      Like, one of the things I noticed at YC is a lot of the folks that later on become great founders-

    5. MS

      Yes

    6. DC

      ... they worked on projects in high school that may not be commercially, like, venture-funded companies, but they were, like, pretty cool.

    7. MS

      Yeah.

    8. DC

      And so one of the examples I always think of was, um, back in the '90s there was a computer program called Winamp.

    9. MS

      Yep.

    10. DC

      And that's how you would listen to the MP3s you downloaded from Napster.

    11. MS

      Yep.

    12. DC

      And some high school kids, um, Mark Zuckerberg and Adam D'Angelo, I believe, built a music recommendation plugin for Winamp.

    13. MS

      Yep.

    14. DC

      And it was quite popular. I think it was called, like, The Brain or something like that.

    15. MS

      Something like that, yeah.

    16. DC

      And so it was just, like, a free plugin, and it was quite popular, and they made it when they were in high school. And I don't think it had anything to do with what they did later on in life, but they knew how to r- write code, they knew how to make something they themselves wanted, which was music recommendation for Winamp.

    17. MS

      Yes.

    18. DC

      And they released it, and I think it got, like, millions of downloads. It was pretty popular.

    19. MS

      They went through all the motions a startup founder has to. But in this kind of, like, no stakes-

    20. DC

      Yeah

    21. MS

      ... you know?

    22. DC

      They weren't trying to-

    23. MS

      Yeah

    24. DC

      ... it wasn't a business, at least to my understanding. Maybe, maybe they thought it was, but I, it was more of making something cool.

    25. MS

      Yes.

    26. DC

      And this sort of story comes up a lot in a-

    27. MS

      Yes

    28. DC

      ... in our f- some of the founders that we fund, is that they do stuff like this.

    29. MS

      Yeah.

    30. DC

      And you'll ask them, "Well, why, why were you doing that?" And they almost don't understand the question.

  6. 6:49 – 8:04

    Make Friends

    1. DC

      young.

    2. MS

      The next one that comes up a lot, if you're gonna be a startup founder one day, you gotta learn how to talk to people. Gotta learn how to make friends.

    3. DC

      Yep.

    4. MS

      And needless to say, I think that this is a skill that people kind of assume you can't learn. Like, assume like, oh, some people are just really social-

    5. DC

      Yeah

    6. MS

      ... and other people are just shy, and like, I can't change that. But I know you and I have seen this with YC founders, like-

    7. DC

      Absolutely

    8. MS

      ... massively change [laughs] you know? Like-

    9. DC

      Absolutely

    10. MS

      ... this is 100% a learnable skill, and anyone who says otherwise is really doing you a, a disservice.

    11. DC

      Yep.

    12. MS

      I think what's so interesting about this one is just like the previous examples, the way you get better at it is you suck at it first.

    13. DC

      Yeah. And you have to be willing to be uncomfortable. Again, I-

    14. MS

      S-

    15. DC

      ... I think my high school mentality, I don't know if you felt the same way, is you believe too much that your identity then-

    16. MS

      [laughs]

    17. DC

      ... like, that's a nerd, that's a jock, that's a th-

    18. MS

      [laughs]

    19. DC

      Like, it was like you would put people in, sort people into buckets-

    20. MS

      Yes

    21. DC

      ... like they were, like, permanent.

    22. MS

      Yes.

    23. DC

      And that's fake.

    24. MS

      Yes.

    25. DC

      That shit is not permanent. Everyone could be anything-

    26. MS

      Yes, yes

    27. DC

      ... [laughs] if they choose to.

    28. MS

      Yes.

    29. DC

      And so you can make a choice. If you're like, "Well, I'm not really, you know, a people person," or like, "I'm not the kind of person that would go and talk to everyone at a party or whatever," like, yeah, you could do that.

    30. MS

      Totally do that.

  7. 8:04 – 9:13

    School Sandbox

    1. MS

      Well, and it's so weird to me because looking back to high school, it was such a, like, it was such a sandbox. Like, it was such an environment where my interactions with people didn't matter really, right? Like, I'm not... How many high school people are you still really close with, right?

    2. DC

      Not a ton.

    3. MS

      Not a ton, right?

    4. DC

      Not a ton.

    5. MS

      So like, one, that reputation's not gonna follow you in the real world, and two, you can experiment. Like, you, you can play. Like-

    6. DC

      You can be whoever you wanna be. [laughs]

    7. MS

      Yeah. If you make a fool of yourself, you go to college, you're not gonna see those people ever again. [laughs]

    8. DC

      [laughs]

    9. MS

      Like, it's totally fine. Totally fine. And I think that, um, the other thing that I learned about this is that everyone else feels shy, too. Even the people who you think don't feel shy. Even the people who you think, oh, they make a bunch of friends, da da da da. Everyone has that thing inside-

    10. DC

      Yeah

    11. MS

      ... of them, being a little bit like, "Oh, I'm-"

    12. DC

      And I think when you're older, you get that.

    13. MS

      Yes. You get it, okay.

    14. DC

      But man, you don't get that, you don't get that the popular kids are like-

    15. MS

      No

    16. DC

      ... have their own thing they're working on-

    17. MS

      Exactly

    18. DC

      ... that they're struggling with.

    19. MS

      Exactly. The person that you're afraid to go talk to is the same person who would probably like someone to come talk to them. [laughs]

  8. 9:13 – 11:20

    Learn To Care

    1. MS

      I think another one here is, like, how to help people. I think that, um, what's tricky about being a startup founder is you have to be empathetic. Like, you actually have to care about your customers, you have to care about your users. And I think this is something you can start practicing early. And you know, I, I remember doing this, a- and it was this really weird story. I remember tutoring some kid in high school. And I'll tell you, I'll be honest, right? I was doing it to check the box-

    2. DC

      [laughs]

    3. MS

      ... on the, like, National Merit Scholarship, whatever the, the, the contest of the thing. And I remember, you know, I was maybe 11th grade, and I was tutoring this 9th grader. And I remember the parents on the second or third time I came just looking at me and smiling, and being like... And I realized, oh my God. Like, they really, really, really want their kid to learn, and they are so happy that I'm taking time, and they're paying me.

    4. DC

      [laughs]

    5. MS

      And they're still so happy that I'm taking time out of my schedule to help this kid. And I was like, oh my God. Like, that's when, like, it kinda clicked a little bit, where I was like, if you help someone, they'll really appreciate it. Like, if you actually help them, right? If you care. And I actually took it more seriously. Um, and it was funny 'cause I remember there was one time where I screwed up and I couldn't make it, and I was like, "Oh my God, they're gonna, they're gonna fire me." Like, I was supposed to be there. And they were like, "Totally fine." [laughs] They were like, "Just come back next week. It's totally fine." [laughs] And I think you might find that with your customers. Like, even if you screw up, like, if you really care and you're really helping them, they're not gonna fire you. [laughs]

    6. DC

      [laughs]

    7. MS

      They're not gonna fire you. It's, it is so rare to find products or people who actually care.

    8. DC

      Yeah.

    9. MS

      It, that's a rare thing.

    10. DC

      Especially from young people. Again, like, people are really impressed when young people care.

    11. MS

      Give a shit. [laughs]

    12. DC

      [laughs] It's, you like, like, teachers notice, like, people notice.

    13. MS

      Yeah.

    14. DC

      I don't know. It's, it's a way to stand out. Um-

    15. MS

      Yeah. [laughs] It's a very easy way to stand out.

  9. 11:20 – 13:35

    Credential Game

    1. MS

      Um, now here's another one that's a little controversial, right? Like, how to play the credential game. This one's tricky because I'd like to say we live in a world where credentials don't matter.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      But we don't live in that world.

    4. DC

      Don't.

    5. MS

      Right? So how, how would you tell a high schooler to think about this game?

    6. DC

      There's the people that, like, love the system and embrace the system.

    7. MS

      Yes.

    8. DC

      Like the teacher's pets.

    9. MS

      Yes.

    10. DC

      And then there's the people that see the system for what it is-

    11. MS

      Yes

    12. DC

      ... and they wanna rage against the machine and destroy the system.

    13. MS

      Yes.

    14. DC

      And you know, I was a little bit more on that side.

    15. MS

      God, yes.

    16. DC

      You know, um-

    17. MS

      The Stanford kid. Yeah, exactly. [laughs]

    18. DC

      No, but, but the key thing is, I, I'm telling you, I'm talking high school, pre-start. I'm just trying to say, like, when you see the system-

    19. MS

      You got into Stanford [laughs]

    20. DC

      ... and you see how the world works-

    21. MS

      Yes

    22. DC

      ... you're like, "Man, this is, like, not ideal."

    23. MS

      Yeah.

    24. DC

      I think is one way to say it.

    25. MS

      Yes.

    26. DC

      Um-

    27. MS

      A little fucked up.

    28. DC

      To the extent you can learn to work to understand the rules of the game and play the game with credentials and realize that leveling up on the credential game will help you with your long-term goals-

    29. MS

      Yeah

    30. DC

      ... I think that's much better than, like, rejecting the system out of hand.

  10. 13:35 – 15:42

    Fads That Stick

    1. MS

      All right. Let's talk about fads.

    2. DC

      Yeah.

    3. MS

      There've been a lot of fads. [laughs]

    4. DC

      Yeah. Well, I think it's easy, especially when you're young, to just cau- get caught up in stuff, whatever the thing is.

    5. MS

      Yeah.

    6. DC

      And some of the things are pretty cool. Again, I was really into the internet. [laughs]

    7. MS

      Yep, yep, yep.

    8. DC

      When that was a new thing.

    9. MS

      Yes.

    10. DC

      I was really, really, really into it.

    11. MS

      Yes.

    12. DC

      And obviously, that stuck around.

    13. MS

      Yep.

    14. DC

      Certainly, there's a lot of young people that got super into crypto. There's young people that got really into stock trading recently with WallStreetBets and Reddit.

    15. MS

      Yeah, yeah.

    16. DC

      Like, you'll see people get really into stuff.

    17. MS

      Yeah.

    18. DC

      And so it's actually great fun, uh, uh, in, in the Zuckerberg case-

    19. MS

      Yeah

    20. DC

      ... building, uh, Winamp plugins, that was part of the Napster thing.

    21. MS

      Yes.

    22. DC

      So they were really into that.

    23. MS

      Yeah, yeah.

    24. DC

      But how... You know, where could it go f- too far, Michael? Uh...

    25. MS

      Yeah, I think that, like, the tricky bit about fads is this kind of, like what we said before about understanding the credential system. The fads are just like another system, right? And I think you kinda have to understand that some things stick because they create a lot of value, and other things are just kinda passing with the time. And I think what's really important for young people to start to understand is, like, how to distinguish between the two, right? Like, fads stick when they really add value, and fads pass when they don't. And if you can have a nose for when something is adding value, when it's actually helping people, if you can train yourself on that, then that's a really important skill.

    26. DC

      That's a great point.

    27. MS

      Um, on the flip side, we see the opposite of this in the startup world all the time, where, like, COVID happens, everyone wants to have a Zoom startup, and it's like-

    28. DC

      Yes. [laughs]

    29. MS

      The Zoom guys thought people needed video conferencing-

    30. DC

      [laughs]

  11. 15:42 – 17:50

    Be Excited

    1. MS

      you know? Next one, how to be excited about technology. We came up in this weird era, I guess. I didn't think it was weird, but looking back, I guess it was weird, where, um, everyone thought technology was cool and making the world a better place.

    2. DC

      Yeah. A lot of the way we understand the world is framed via journalism.

    3. MS

      Yes.

    4. DC

      And one thing, again, for young people, they don't have context on this.

    5. MS

      Yeah.

    6. DC

      But it used to be journalists were all emphatically excited with no downsides-

    7. MS

      No reservations

    8. DC

      ... no reservations.

    9. MS

      Yeah.

    10. DC

      The internet is great.

    11. MS

      Yes. [laughs] It's made the world a better place.

    12. DC

      And they would debate how great it was.

    13. MS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    14. DC

      [laughs] The debate was like-

    15. MS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    16. DC

      ... "Yeah, yeah, we know it's great, but just how great?"

    17. MS

      Yeah. And who's making it the be-

    18. DC

      [laughs]

    19. MS

      Who's making it the better the fastest, you know? Yeah.

    20. DC

      And so it was this... It was hard to, like, see any problems with it.

    21. MS

      Yes.

    22. DC

      And, um, in this current universe we live in-

    23. MS

      It's the opposite

    24. DC

      ... yeah, it's this is bad, a lot of these people are bad.

    25. MS

      Every new technology, how is it gonna try to screw us, exploit us?

    26. DC

      Yeah.

    27. MS

      You know, yada, yada, yada. And let's be clear, both extremes are incorrect.

    28. DC

      That's correct.

    29. MS

      [laughs]

    30. DC

      Yeah. No, those are fair points.

  12. 17:50 – 20:08

    Be Honest

    1. MS

      Let's talk about honesty.

    2. DC

      Yep.

    3. MS

      This is a big one. This is a big one that I think people, um, in fact, you know, we talk about a lot of people who maybe didn't learn this lesson, that honesty is important. And for a while, they do okay with it, but inevitably, um, they get caught. So how do you think about learning to be honest if you're a high schooler?

    4. DC

      The best skill is to learn to be honest to yourself. [laughs]

    5. MS

      Yeah. Yeah.

    6. DC

      Like, if you, if your own relationship with yourself-

    7. MS

      Yes

    8. DC

      ... is you can't be honest about things. What do you really feel? What do you really think? Who are you really?

    9. MS

      Yeah.

    10. DC

      It's gonna be rough.

    11. MS

      Yeah.

    12. DC

      And then at your core, if you're not honest with yourself, your, your relationship with your parents, your relationship with your friends, with institutions-

    13. MS

      Yes

    14. DC

      ... it's gonna be tricky. And we-

    15. MS

      Yes

    16. DC

      ... we, we run across folks that seem like they've deferred a lot of this honesty.

    17. MS

      Yeah. I think that, um, the thing you should understand about the startup world is that a lot of it works because of honesty. A lot of the reasons why early adopting customers will use you is because, like, they think you're gonna be honest. A lot of reasons why investors might give you money, why your co-founder might work with you, employee might work with you, um, a lot of reasons why people make things happen in the startup world is because we're in a high-trust environment.

    18. DC

      Yeah. And this is one of those, like, negative things that people say about nerds is, "Oh, this person has no manners. They just say whatever they think." Like, again, in, in polite society-

    19. MS

      Yeah. [laughs] You're supposed to lie all the time. [laughs]

    20. DC

      Something, something a nerd would do is be like, "Hey, um, my s- our, that product sucks."

    21. MS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    22. DC

      Like, like, why are we shipping this product that no one wants?

    23. MS

      Yeah. [laughs]

    24. DC

      Like, it's like, "Hey, shut up, man."

    25. MS

      [laughs]

    26. DC

      Like, like, that's like what a, that's what a nerd would do.

    27. MS

      Yes.

    28. DC

      You know, you're bad for telling the truth about something 'cause it's impolite and you're hurting people's feelings.

    29. MS

      Yeah.

    30. DC

      And so there is part of the nerd culture in this that I think is good, which is-

  13. 20:08 – 23:46

    Love The Long Games

    1. MS

      And then I think the last one is, um, learn to love long games. And this is kind of the theme that we brought up in the beginning. These games are long. And I remember when I started my startup, I was 23 years old, and I'd never done anything that took very long. Like, when you really think about it, like, what do you do in school? What's the longest project you have in school? Like, maybe a senior thesis in college, maybe. And so I remember talking to our lawyer at the time, and he said... Oh, and he, and he was 30, which in my mind was, like, impossibly old. I was like, "Well, obviously nothing you know is relevant to modern times." And he said, "You know, the average startup takes seven to 10 years to exit or IPO or sell." And I just thought that couldn't be the case. Like-

    2. DC

      [laughs]

    3. MS

      And, and what's funny is, like, he worked at a law firm, like, he worked at a law firm that represented, like, maybe a quarter of all tech companies. He had the data. [laughs] Like, this wasn't like a off the top of his head thing. And I just remember thinking, "This guy doesn't know what he's talking about." And I remember when our company sold, took him out to dinner. It was seven years later.

    4. DC

      [laughs]

    5. MS

      I was his age when he told me that. I was 30. He was 37, impossibly old. I just remember thinking, "Fuck, the guy was right." Like-

    6. DC

      Yeah

    7. MS

      ... this is a long game.

    8. DC

      And I think having ambition in your life involves playing the long game.

    9. MS

      Yes.

    10. DC

      Because to actually do something great-

    11. MS

      Yes

    12. DC

      ... it doesn't happen overnight.

    13. MS

      Yes.

    14. DC

      And I don't know what your experience is, but we, we've known a lot of people when they were very young.

    15. MS

      Yes.

    16. DC

      And it's okay to have ambition. It's good to have ambition.

    17. MS

      Yes.

    18. DC

      And true ambition means being patient over many, many, many years.

    19. MS

      Yes.

    20. DC

      And so to give you a completely non-startup example, my high school girlfriend-

    21. MS

      Yep

    22. DC

      ... her thing was poetry.

    23. MS

      Yeah.

    24. DC

      And she really liked poetry. Again, this is, like, high school.

    25. MS

      Yeah, yeah, yeah.

    26. DC

      And so she'd, like, write all this poetry. She'd read... You know, that was, like, her thing.

    27. MS

      Yep.

    28. DC

      And, you know, I kinda fell out of touch with her, but she's the, um, New York Times poetry critic now.

    29. MS

      Holy shit. [laughs]

    30. DC

      [laughs] And that was my high school girlfriend who loved poetry.

  14. 23:46 – 24:21

    Live Your Dream

    1. MS

      So to wrap up, if you're a high schooler and you're thinking about this startup game, one, that's awesome, right? Like, we love that you're thinking about it.

    2. DC

      Hey, don't let it, never let anyone put you down.

    3. MS

      Yeah, no.

    4. DC

      Like, have a dream. We're telling you.

    5. MS

      It's cool.

    6. DC

      Be cool. Be yourself.

    7. MS

      It's like a-

    8. DC

      If that's your dream, we love it.

    9. MS

      Yes.

    10. DC

      Live your dream.

    11. MS

      Live your dream. The game will be here when you're ready to play, and, you know, we'll be here to help. [upbeat music] All right, man. Great chat. Thank you.

Episode duration: 24:21

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