In listening to an interview with Peter Thiel talking about his book Zero to One, there were a lot of questions about why did the Paypal founders a.k.a. Paypal mafia become the engine of a lot of further successful startups and investments: Tesla, SpaceX, YouTube, Linkedin, Palantir, Facebook…etc.
Thiel described the characteristics of the startup journeys specially in the early phases of discovering the product market fit – Three variations: Easy and Possible, Impossible, Tough but Possible. Microsoft which was built in perfect timing was easy and possible, some others hit the impossible, but the ones like Paypal who lived through the tough but possible witnessed a real transformation.
Yeah, the best mindset is created from the successful “Tough but possible” journeys! This mindset makes us accept the risk and toughness as part of the game while waking up every day and taking one step forward…
Photo credit:By Source (WP:NFCC#4), Fair use
Photo Description: Back row from left: Jawed Karim, co-founder Youtube; Jeremy Stoppelman CEO Yelp; Andrew McCormack, managing partner Laiola Restaurant; Premal Shah, Pres of Kiva; 2nd row from left: Luke Nosek, managing partner The Founders Fund; Kenny Howery, managing partner The Founders Fund; David Sacks, CEO Geni and Room 9 Entertainment; Peter Thiel, CEO Clarium Capital and Founders Fund; Keith Rabois, VP BIz Dev at Slide and original Youtube Investor; Reid Hoffman, Founder Linkedin; Max Levchin, CEO Slide; Roelof Botha, partner Sequoia Capital; Russel Simmons, CTO and co-founder of Yelp