20VC: Elad Gil's High Growth Handbook on The Commonalities of The Truly Great CEOs, How To Hire The Very Best Execs, Why Cash is A Defensible Moat Today & The Pros and Cons of M&A and IPOs

**Harry Stebbings** (0:00)
We are back for another week on The Twenty Minute VC with me, Harry Stebbings. You can find me on Instagram at hstebbings1996, where you can suggest both guests and questions for future episodes. But to the show's day, and I'm honestly not sure how to introduce him. He's an immensely special member of our ecosystem, who's really helped and supported me since our first episode. So I'm going to try my best. Elad Gil is the founder at Color, the startup that shows you your genes can help you make better health decisions. And they've raised over $112 million in funding from the likes of General Catalyst, CRV, 8VC, Aaron Levie and more incredible names. Elad's also an incredible angel, counting the likes of Airbnb, Stripe, Optimizely, Opendoor and Wish, all in his portfolio. And now Elad is adding a new string to his very talented bow with the release of his book, High Growth Handbook, published by Stripe, in which Elad interviews 14 leaders from the Valley, from Marc Andreesen to Reid Hoffman to Patrick Collison. Plus, he shares his own experiences from Google, growing from 1,500 to 15,000 and Twitter, growing from 100 to 1,500. Not only is this the first book that I've read voraciously from cover to cover in a long, long time, but it's now outselling to 1 and Lean Startup as pre-order. I cannot recommend it enough. And if you buy one book this year, it has to be this. Full stop, you have my word. However, before we welcome Elad, the reality is that hiring amazing developers is hard. And it's much harder if you're looking only in a 25-mile radius of your office. And that's where Terminal comes in. Terminal is your dedicated partner in rapidly standing up world-class remote technical teams. How do they deliver both speed and quality? Well, Terminal does this by focusing on everything necessary to successfully source, set up and support these teams. From physical elements like beautiful workspaces and equipment, to ongoing resources like HR, payroll, legal, professional learning and development. But don't take my word for this. Take the word of Eventbrite, former 20VC guest hymns and Dialpad, all customers and lovers of Terminal. And you can find out more today at terminal.io. And speaking of products people love, whether you're starting your own small business or getting serious about making your small business more efficient, you need to invite FreshBooks to the table. FreshBooks makes cloud accounting software that's so ridiculously easy to use. Even I can use it. And you'll quickly understand why over 10 million people use it to radically streamline how they deal with their admin and paperwork. Oh, and FreshBooks can handle a lot more than accounting related tasks. Using FreshBooks is kind of like having your own admin assistant, who's got your back 24-7.
And to claim your 30-day unrestricted free trial, go to freshbooks.com forward slash VC and enter 20minutevc in the how did you hear about us section. But with every function from accounting and finance to software development, communication across the team is really crucial. Enter Hi5. Hi5 simplifies business collaboration with a conferencing platform that builds connected cultures. It's an all-in-one solution, including intuitive cloud software and purpose-built meeting room hardware. Plus, it's a high quality experience with industry-leading audio powered by Dolby Voice, and it's so easy to use. There's no PIN codes or app downloads. Just click a link in your browser and you're in the meeting. Growing fast with customers in over 100 countries, Hi5 is already trusted by the likes of Harry's, Rue La La, Expensify, The Atlantic and Betterment, just to name a few. And to learn more and start simplifying your team's video and audio conferencing, visit hi5.com forward slash 20VC. That's hi5.com forward slash 20VC. However, that's quite enough from me, and so now I'm very, very proud to welcome Elad Gil.

**Elad Gil** (3:22)
You have now arrived at your destination.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:25)
Elad, it's such a pleasure to have you on the show today. It's such exciting news about the book, but thank you so much for joining me again. Stay for round two.

**Elad Gil** (3:32)
Ah, thanks so much for having me.

**Harry Stebbings** (3:33)
Not at all. I've been so excited for this one. But for those that may be missed around one of our interview, I'd love to kick off with, how did you make your way into what I always call the wonderful world of startups and investing?

**Elad Gil** (3:44)
Oh yeah, so I moved out to Silicon Valley to join a startup. It was a telecom equipment company, so it was a hardware company. Back as the last bubble was sort of collapsing in the early 2000s. And at the time, I'd just gotten my PhD and realized that academia wasn't really for me. And so it seemed like the best way to have impact was to go into startups and technology. So that's really what got me into the startup world. On the investing side, it really happened organically where I started a company after I left Google.