Bill Gurley’s speech is worth a listen - one of the more memorable I’ve heard on the topic and the storytelling is fantastic. Added a few of my takeaways below (spoiler alert).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmYekD6-PZ8&pp=ygULYmlsbCBndXJsZXk%3D
Paired well with paulgraham.com/love.html and https://www.joincolossus.com/episodes/37140643/senra-lessons-from-the-founder-historian?tab=transcript
You often hear that nothing is going to make you more successful than to love what you’re doing - what really hit home for me was the quote “Everybody has the will to win. People don’t have the will to practice.” Everybody loves winning, do you enjoy the preparation?
Hone your craft constantly - hold yourself accountable to keep learning over time and strive to know more than everyone else about your particular craft. “I can’t make you the smartest or the brightest, but it’s quite doable to be the most knowledgeable”.
Take every chance you can to find somebody who can teach you about the field you want to excel in and also embrace peers in your field. Bill gives great advice on how to actually go about doing this [hint: being on X is a great start].
Finally always give majority of the credit to other people that helped you along the way and make sure to eventually pay it back.
