We know that investors sitting around a table are not going to be able to come up with the future because we aren't the ones actively building it, but we've seen enough and built enough in the way of software and scalable businesses that our' Spidey' senses start tingling when we get on the right track with a founder.

Alexis Ohanian

Categorized in : Technology

Facebook makes me hate the people I know, and Reddit makes me love the people I don't.

Alexis Ohanian

reddit hate people

I often think of a quote from entrepreneur Jim Rohn: 'You are the average of the five people you spend the most time with.' Surround yourself with people who are doing interesting things, who are thinking interesting thoughts, who challenge you to be better, and who come from a diverse set of backgrounds and experiences. That, combined with appropriate moments of 'me' time, provides the perfect breeding ground for great ideas. And whatever you do, don't get hung up on what competitors are doing. Be aware of what's going on in the industry, but don't let it dictate your own creative process.

Alexis Ohanian

average ideas thinking

The people who are going to be succeeding are not going to be waiting around for anyone's permission.

Alexis Ohanian

succeed waiting-around people

It takes discipline not to let social media steal your time.

Alexis Ohanian

stealing discipline media

The surveillance state has run amok. Technology that's enabled us to send selfies 24/7 - not that valuable - has also enabled us to be spied upon us 24/7.

Alexis Ohanian

surveillance-state technology running

If you want to succeed, you've got to be okay to just lose control.

Alexis Ohanian

succeed business want

The great thing about the Internet is, it's the freest marketplace of ideas that there is.

Alexis Ohanian

great-things internet ideas

I hate phone calls so I believe in a telephone armistice. To me, the idea of calling someone unprompted is basically saying, 'Hey, stop whatever you're doing and talk to me right now.

Alexis Ohanian

phones hate believe

We don't even realize something is broken until someone else shows us a better way

Alexis Ohanian

realizing broken way

There was a clear lesson here — and that was that the Internet loves Mister Splashy Pants.

Alexis Ohanian

lessons motivation inspiration

Entrepreneur is just French for 'has ideas, does them'.

Alexis Ohanian

entrepreneur doe ideas

The reality is, there's still so much we haven't yet figured out. There's still so much stuff that has not been made more, frankly, efficient.

Alexis Ohanian

made stuff reality

If you have things or are involved with things that turn on, it's going to have code. And there are so many people - let's pick on the historians - even as a historian, let's say I ended up going the road of being a historian, just knowing some basic scripts, any kind of automation would have made me a 10 times better historian because I wouldn't have to sit there changing every file name to "1234" and then "12345." It can have a transformative value.

Alexis Ohanian

knowing names people

I try to help founders as much as I can, but so many of us we won't even take meetings with people who still just have an idea, because everyone has an idea.

Alexis Ohanian

trying people ideas

If you imagine Maslow's hierarchy of needs, if you can get all those requirements checked off and have all those amazing things that we need to just live lives, but actually get to do the thing that you're really passionate about.

Alexis Ohanian

live-life passionate needs

Everything is derivative. Everything is a remix, and we all stand on the shoulders of giants - a great phrase.

Alexis Ohanian

derivatives phrases giants

Can we imagine the United States without electricity? No, that would be pretty hard. Likewise, we can't really imagine being without an open Internet. The cost would be so grave, so serious.

Alexis Ohanian

united-states cost would-be

If I didn't believe in rooting for founders and investing in founders, I'd be a bit of a hypocrite.

Alexis Ohanian

investing hypocrite believe

You know that Estonia, based largely on how successful Skype was, built by Estonian developers, that was a tenth of the entire country's GDP when eBay bought it. That was like a decade ago, it was f****** Estonia, they were behind the Iron Curtain two decades earlier. They're now pushing for K-12 education in computer science in public schools. They've gotten the message. They know how much value that can bring.

Alexis Ohanian

successful country school

The Internet is such a tough marketplace because everyone is a click away from going back to a cat photo, or going back to whatever else they were doing. You have to win them over, and do it quickly, and do it by making something people actually want.

Alexis Ohanian

cat winning people