E440: What Steve Jobs Taught Me About Great Founders

Steven Rosenblatt (0:00)

Founders and Ambitious are deep in detail. You can hear what they're saying, you can see what they're thinking about. They take you along their journey. They're very deep in terms of their thinking, and they can articulate clearly what the company looks like today and where they want to take it. They may be wrong. It's very clear. Delusional is long on smoke and mirrors. You kind of look and you kind of say, they're light on details and substance, but pretty damn good on storytelling, and there's a lot of smoke and mirrors.

David Weisburd (0:30)

You got to see firsthand Steve Jobs, you got to work with him. What did you observe from working with Steve Jobs?

Steven Rosenblatt (0:38)

What I saw from Steve was this incredible ability to go so deep into the weeds on things. His ability to look at everything from pixels and colors to then, this incredible vision of what he wanted to do is just so unique, and it's very rare to find a human who's able to get so into the weeds and in such detail on so many things, but yet have such a grand vision.

David Weisburd (1:06)

So Steven, you've spent over 20 years building companies and investing. What do great technology companies have in common?

Steven Rosenblatt (1:15)

Starts with the people. I think first and foremost, it is without question the companies that are able to attract the best talent or the founders really appreciate and understand that in order to build a world class organization and culture, you need world class people and you need people better and great at specific things. And without question, the number one universal thing through all the different periods is people and talent.

David Weisburd (1:46)

Everybody wants to have great talent in their company, but how does one go about building a culture and a process of building great talent?

Steven Rosenblatt (1:53)

It starts with the founder. I mean, you need money. So I think like, if you don't have capital, it's hard to pay people and you have equity.

But it starts with someone who's, I think smart people, they want to do big things. They don't want to do boring things. And so I think when I see a founder who's building something that truly is different, unique, game changing, it's going to attract different type of people, right? Because it's just a magnet. There's a company that's being built, and there's 15 of those companies.

The best people, best talent may not see it as a challenge. So it's got to be a challenge. It's got to be something that you feel like you're helping and part of building. And I think the onus also is on the founder to make everyone feel like they're part of building it. It's not just the founder's company, it's everyone's company.

David Weisburd (2:45)

Have you been involved in one of these companies in your career?

Steven Rosenblatt (2:48)

Yeah, I think I've been involved in several of them in different forms in fashion. When I was at Quattro Wireless in 2008, during the kind of early days of mobile, the founders, Andy Ishwar Lars, they were just incredible and super complimentary in terms of skill sets. And to join a mobile company when my wife was six months pregnant, right as the financial crisis was hitting, that's kind of crazy. But I did it because I love them. I love the culture. I love the people. They were inspiring and they were about to build. I know now it's easy to be like, oh, it's mobile. That was obvious. In 2007-8, it was far from obvious. I can't tell you how many people told me I was nuts for going to a company that was going to try and build something for a device that was like this small when there was really a keyboard and Apple was just rolling out their first phone.

But again, I jumped on because I just felt like they were so inspiring and they were incredible people.

David Weisburd (3:50)

As an investor, how do you go about telling between ambition and delusion when it comes to the top founders?

Steven Rosenblatt (3:57)

Well, I think it's the difference between success and failure. Founders and ambitious are deep in detail.

You can hear what they're saying, you can see what they're thinking about, they take you along their journey, they're very deep in terms of their thinking, and they can articulate clearly what the company looks like today and where they want to take it. They may be wrong, but it's very clear. Delusional is long on smoke and mirrors. You kind of look and you kind of say, they're light on details and substance, but pretty damn good on storytelling, and there's a lot of smoke and mirrors. And I think that's also, you know, typically leads to the difference between success and failure.