Marc Andreessen, founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, and inventor of the modern web browser, went on a tweet storm this morning about how to kill your startup, and damage Silicon Valley in the process.
Here are the tweets:
0/Ten + one ways to grievously damage your high-growth tech startup, and Silicon Valley in the process:
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
1/Only hire, and only train/motivate/incent your managers to hire -- don't optimize efficiency, don't do performance management, don't fire.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
2/Founders, sell too much of your own personal stock too quickly, alienating your employees and questioning your long-term commitment.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
3/Let private stock sales by employees get out of hand: create hit-and-run culture and take on burdens of being public before going public.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
4/Dilute the s*** out of cap table: be sloppy & undisciplined w/stock grants to early employees, plant morale land mine for later employees.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
5/Maximize absolute valuation of each growth round: make later rounds harder and harder to achieve, until you trigger disastrous down round.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
6/Let non-SV investors suck you into terrible structural terms on growth rounds: guarantee massive trauma if anything goes slightly wrong.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
7/Go public too soon, before you're a fortress, before you can withstand all the assaults: ending in stock price death spiral & train wreck.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
8/Pour huge money into overly glorious new headquarters, signaling to employees "we've made it, we're amazing", then repeat two years later.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
9/Confuse conference circuit & party scene with actual work. Encourage alcohol & drugs, party culture in company, value ballers over nerds.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
10/Refuse to take HR seriously: allow terrible internal manager & employee behavior to catalyze into catastrophic ethical & legal crisis.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014
11/And the one that will actually kill you: Assume more cash is always available at higher & higher valuations, forever.
— Marc Andreessen (@pmarca) July 8, 2014