Lessons from Bret Taylor

On Entrepreneurship and Startups

On the psychological toll of entrepreneurship: "The hardest part about being an entrepreneur is managing your own psychology… I think people don't talk about it enough, because it is so trying. You come home and you just feel dejected and defeated. And it's okay, everyone does it."
On the importance of co-founders: "I just thought so intentionally about finding a co-founder that was someone that I knew I could be metaphorically married to for a long period of time that would not only be a partner in business but a partner through those struggles."
On the power of storytelling: "I think it's something that I didn't appreciate when I started my first company was how important storytelling is to being an entrepreneur... so much of being starting a company is getting good at storytelling."
On validating your product: "One of my pieces of advice to B2B software companies is sell your software... what they're really telling you is you haven't created something valuable enough to buy."
On the danger of narrative building: "I think it's the narrative building is the biggest danger in startups and I think it's very important to like force yourself to have honest conversations with the market."
On the nature of entrepreneurial tendencies: "You end up being much more independent when you have to constantly go into a new school and establish a new identity. I think a lot of my entrepreneurial tendencies were at least amplified by that just because I went in kind of having to forge my own path." [3]
On the liberation of starting a business: "It was also incredibly liberating. I remember the feeling with technology where I was 16 or 17 at the time, and I was actually running a business — that sense of independence and liberation, it was addictive. You just get this sense of ‘I can do this.’" [3]
On the competitive landscape: "Obvious and competitive tend to go hand in hand right now... there's like seven legitimate companies in each of these."
On the fun of being an entrepreneur during a tech wave: "It's a fun time to be an entrepreneur... when there's a technology wave as meaningful as large language models... it kind of shuffles the cards of the tech industry a bit."
On the initial focus of a startup: "When you start you just need to build something people want."

On Leadership and Career Growth

On the most impactful question to ask daily: "What's the most impactful thing I can do today?" [2]
On adapting your role to the job's demands: "The mistake I made early in my career that I've gotten better at is rather than trying to conform your job to you, think about what is the most important thing this job demands of me and change yourself." [7]
On having a flexible identity: "I really think of myself, I probably would self-describe as an engineer, but more broadly, I think of myself as a builder... and I think companies are one of the most effective ways to build products." [2]
On overcoming the 'single-issue voter' mindset: "I think it's really important when you're a founder to be self-aware that you will naturally subconsciously pick the thing that is your strength, your superpower." [2]
On the true source of job satisfaction: "I realized that the actual act of engineering or product design or all the things I thought I liked, what I really liked is impact." [7]
On hiring for grit: "There's a certain amount of grit necessary to be successful at any early stage company... looking for that kind of you know you you move out of your swim lane and you make something happen because it's the thing that needs to be done."
On the importance of listening in sales: "If you ever see a really good salesperson, the first thing you'll see them do is ask a lot of questions. But then the next thing you need to do is actually listen and understand what they're saying."
On being open to opportunities: "Be open-minded to opportunities. Sometimes you miss out on the great opportunities in life because you're so focused on what's ahead that you're not looking around at the opportunities available to you."
On developing resilience: "The more you're in complex situations the more when you're presented with one you can kind of dispassionately... figure out okay what am I going to do." [4]
On the value of experience: "As you develop the battle scars of navigating complex situations it helps being able to put it in a compartment and have that family dinner." [4]

On Artificial Intelligence

On the nature of generative AI: "Generative AI broadly is a technology with which it's very easy to make a demo and very hard to make an industrial grade system."
On the future of software development: "Software systems are moving from rule-based to goals and guardrails based. It's a very different mental model for building software systems."
On the opportunity in AI for customer interaction: "With AI we have this opportunity to bring down the cost of a conversation down to something that's fairly marginable... we'll be able to actually have a direct personal conversation with so many consumer brands in a way that just wasn't possible before."
On the market for AI solutions: "Companies want to buy solutions to their problems that happen to be facilitated by AI, they don't want to buy AI." [11]
On the AI market's evolution: "I believe the AI market will play out somewhat like the cloud market played out." [12]
On the hype versus reality of AI: "I think it's one of those things a little bit like the .com bubble where there are elements of it that are almost comically overhyped and clearly false... and then for example... there's a lot of demos out there that are purely snake oil." [5]
On job transformation due to AI: "All forms of AI may displace some jobs... but... do you reduce the number of people in customer service or do you just have more conversations with your customers?" [13]
On the importance of reskilling: "I do think every company should think about reskilling and the new types of jobs being created." [14]
On the future of jobs: "We are incredibly creative and I think we will create new jobs that will be high leverage high impact." [5]
On the accessibility of technology through AI: "Look how natural language is... I do hope that once we all reimagine a lot of interfaces with conversational interfaces sort of at the forefront, just think of how many more people can benefit from the products that all of us develop."

On Product and Technology

On the essence of product design: "Product design is a lot about the quality of the designer's intuition."
On the importance of customer interaction: "Every day, I interact with at least one customer in order to make sure the company authentically understands what our customers need." [16]
On platform shifts creating opportunities: "I believe in technology and a lot of business opportunities come up in platform shifts. The move from mainframe to the PC, the move from PCs to internet-connected devices, the advent of mobile devices and now the advent of artificial intelligence are all moments when companies that embrace those platforms can define the next generation's customer experiences and business models." [3]
On the importance of a data culture: "If you're not making those foundational investments now, creating a data culture at your company, building a digital customer experience, building a single source of truth, breaking down those data silos now, you'll be caught flat-footed once the technologies are actually a reality."
On the need for a digital headquarters: "Every company needs a digital HQ to connect its employees, customers, and partners, and thrive in a work-from-anywhere world." [16]
On the accessibility of technology: "For me, that's the next phase of these amazing technologies is making them accessible because if we really want all of our experiences to be smarter, more intelligent, more personalized, it can't just be in the domain of technology companies." [17]
On systems thinking in product development: "Your job as the operator of that code manager generating machine is to make a product or to solve a problem. And you really need to have great systems thinking." [2]
On the illusion of the perfect design mockup: "If you ever had like a really really good designer and they showed you at the time a Photoshop mockup of of the newsfeed it was just always beautiful... The system you design has to be robust to all of the messiness of humanity." [2]

On Life and Learning

On the value of life coaching: "I'll say life coaching has been so useful for me... somebody who's like professionally qualified to kind of like help align you with your dreams."
On the importance of a support system: "Having a small support group of people who are doing the same thing something similar... it's kind of indispensable to have a certain amount of validation."
On the purpose of education: "I come from the old school world where I think education is about learning how to think." [5]
On embracing change: "What we do and how we do it does not define who we are."
On the importance of being a lifelong learner: "I think it's an opportunity for all of us to excel in our jobs. I don't mean to minimize the disruption, but I think people who lean into it can really find new opportunities in their careers."
On the value of tinkering: "I'm a huge believer in it [tinkering]. I actually think that product design is a lot about the quality of the designer's intuition."
On the confluence of technology and capitalism: "I'm a huge believer in the confluence of technology and capitalism to produce you know just incredible outcomes for customers." [2]
On the power of humanity: "I think with the right mentorship, the right mindset... I think we're capable of a lot as people." [4]

Learn more:

Lessons from Bret Taylor

On Entrepreneurship and Startups

On Leadership and Career Growth

On Artificial Intelligence

On Product and Technology

On Life and Learning

Written by Antoine Buteau

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