Personal Advice from A Silicon Valley VC Veteran

Professor John Glynn (http://bit.ly/JGlynn) sadly just retired after 20 years of teaching at GSB. I can't say how lucky I am to be in his last class taught at GSB. It's often unbelievable such a humble, nice gentleman who lectured us every Tuesday and Thursday morning is one of the oldest and most influential figures in the Silicon Valley. Above all, I learned a great deal of humility from Professor Glynn.

In his last class, Professor Glynn shared with us a number of personal wisdoms. I will share them in the next few blogs with you all:

Personal Advice (my favorite):
In an era of commercialism and rampant greed, you need to be reminded about the powers of idealism, community, diversity and self-respect.

1. Begin with an end in mind. Know where you are going to understand where you are now.

2. Accept responsibility for yourself. Put the monkey on your back. Obstacles to success are usually not external.

3. Embrace the unknown and distrust the known.

4. Understand then be understood. Listen to how others see things. Try to put yourself in the other person's shoes.

5. Focus on implementation. Organize and act around priorities.

6. Make commitments and live up to them. Do what you say you are going to do.

7. Never ask people to do something you would not do.

8. Continue to learn. "It's what you learn after you know it all that really counts." John Wooden

9. Obey the absolutes of right and wrong. Adhere to your principles even when it hurts to do so.

10. Develop some humility. Most entrepreneurs are long on ego and need more humility.

11. Don't take yourself too seriously. Learn to laugh at yourself.

12. Focus on the glass being half full and not half empty.

13. Play to win. Do not fear failure. Fear of failure is often worse than inertia. Take risks and embrace failure. There is no disgrace in failure if you have acted in a fair and honest manner.

14. Be aware of the shadow you cast.
a. Avoid the total focus on what is good for me.
b. Look at how your actions affect others.
c. Put your ego in place so people can communicate with you.
d. Show your commitment to your people and their importance to your organization. Create a sense of belonging.
e. Be genuine and natural with people and be honest and consistent in dealing with them.

15 Finally, get your priorities straight:
a. Family is #1
b. Wife or husband is #1. Spend time with them.
c. You need a balanced life. Take vacations and breaks to stay sharp.
d. Enjoy life before it is gone.
e. Give rather than take.
f. Do rather than talk.
g. Say it can be done rather than it's impossible.
h. Inspire others rather than discourage.
i. Light a candle rather than curse the darkness.
j. Do more than exist - LIVE.

Bing Gordon's Talk at GSB

Bing Gordon, former Chief Creative Officer and co-founder of EA and General Partner at KPCB, came to speak at GSB last Thursday.

I met him when he and Marc Pincus (founder of Zynga) came to give a talk at Stanford's engineering school last quarter. I really enjoyed that talk and the concept of "digital skyscrapers".

Some great stories and tips from Bing:

When he graduated from Stanford Graduate School of Business (GSB), he had three goals in mind: developing people, designing organizational process, and making money. Not bad goals! What are my goals? I think they are: building amazing products that people love, building great organizations, making money, and make the world more fair.

I always have a love hate relationship with video games, sometimes feeling it's mental porn like the tabloids - a waste of time. At other times, I think they are good as long as they make people happy. Bing had an interesting theory. He quoted some research saying that games are a key driver of human evolution!

Bing also gave this great career advice that you want to join an org where everything is measured by metrics. You don't want to join a company that doesn't have any young people in the senior ranks.

He talked about games as a great educational tool to motivate students to learn. I've personally thought quite a bit about this. Given my boyfriend is working on it, I will do something different :)

when you come to think of it, gameplay has played a big role in making the most popular consumer web startups, ranging from Yelp to Twitter or Facebook. It's all about converting your social status and relationships into numbers. The numbers are more measurable and people can be obsessed with them - how many follow you, how many retweeted you, how many photos tagged you, how many friends you have, etc.

Bing talked about how games train people to test the edge of rules, to measure by data, and to cooperate - all key ingredients for a modern success in career!

Some interesting data he shared (don't quote me, I jogged down the data too quickly to verify): Zynga $10 ARPU, facebook $3, WOW $0.25/hour, and Google $35/hour! In Asia, games make $6-10/year.

The best are his tips to GSB students:

1) do 3 outside projects - not only build your imagination but also support it with facts. Well I did one last year in mobile payment space, then I got too busy with my own startup.

2) build personal relationship with one to several professors. yes, amazing profs at GSB!

3) write 3 business plans! - Ha, I guess I'm well on my way. have gone through 2 detailed plans and so many more briefer versions in my pocket.

Thank you, Bing, and sorry that I forgot to order lunch beforehand!