difficult to hire someone on the marketing and sales side because they’re so different
than technologists and you don’t know who to trust. It takes about a year
Ray Ozzie 109
to really understand whether the people who you are partnering with trust you
and know they will rely upon you just as much as you know you will rely upon
them.
That’s where I think working for another company and building those relationships
is extremely valuable. Frequently, people think just running from
school out into doing a startup is the best thing to do. But I think that getting
some experience within a number of companies is really positive because you
meet people and you start to develop patterns in your mind of the types of people
that you need, and the types of people that you can trust, and the types of
people you never want to work with.
Livingston: What advice would give someone who was thinking of starting or
joining a startup?
Ozzie: For someone who’s joining a startup, just learn about leadership from
the people at the top of the company. Watch how they talk to people, watch
how they present to people. Companies take their shape based on the personality
characteristics and human interaction characteristics of the founders. This is
true in every company. Learn about the kind of culture that you want to create
in your own company based on the positive and negative aspects that you witness
in the people that are your leaders.
Learn to respect and appreciate other people’s skill sets, because you are
going to need other people if you do start a company and you are a technologist.
Understand that it’s a rare, rare case when a tech entrepreneur is the right one
to lead a startup for a long period of time. You have to feel comfortable in your
own skin in terms of what you’re good at and what other people are good at.
Know when the shift to chief technologist is the right thing for the company.
You have to be comfortable with the fact that you are separate from the
thing that you’re building, and that the team and the people financing you will
have joint custody over the asset that you create. You have to respect that and
not associate your own success and failure with the success and failure of your
“child.”
Livingston: Is there anything that you learned from Iris that you applied to
Groove?
Ozzie: In terms of the culture, there were some really strong positive things.
People doing things for the right reason. Never say to people that you are doing
it for the money. Don’t do it for the money.

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