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Vinod Khosla: If You Get the Right Team, It Doesn't Even Matter If the Idea Is Wrong

By Vinod Khosla · Leadership · 2 min read

If you get the right team, it'll iterate enough. It doesn't even matter if you got the spec right. It'll iterate to the right answer. Almost all good startups do that. The team is more important than the market you pick.

Key Points

Big companies extrapolate the past. Entrepreneurs have to invent the future.
If you're doing 'slightly better, slightly cheaper,' your risk is actually higher — reinventing gives you more time to iterate
The right team will iterate to the right answer even if the spec is wrong — team beats market

If you get the right team, it'll iterate enough. It doesn't even matter if you got the spec right. It'll iterate to the right answer.

Extrapolating the Past vs. Inventing the Future

Khosla: There's two ways to think about what to do. One is conventional wisdom — extrapolating the past to predict the future. Big companies do that very well. Intel knows how to go from 15 nanometers to 10 to 7 to 5.

Entrepreneurs fundamentally have to invent the future they want in a very different way. And you have to have conviction about that. We tend not to do 'slightly better, slightly more efficient, slightly lower cost' — the risk of that kind of startup is very high. If you're fundamentally reinventing something and changing the assumptions, you have a lot more time to get it right and a lot more iterations you can do.

'Slightly better' startups are high risk. Reinventing gives you more time and more iterations.

The Right Team Iterates to the Right Answer

Khosla: If you get the right team, it'll iterate enough. It doesn't even matter if you got the spec right. It'll iterate to the right answer. And almost all good startups do that.

This is why the team is more important than the market you pick. If you pick wrong, the right team will iterate to the right answers.

It doesn't even matter if you got the spec right. The right team iterates to the right answer.

Dare to Disagree

Khosla: Especially if there's a culture of debate and disagreeing. If there's a single founder and you're dictating terms, you're not going to evolve. There's a great TED talk called 'Dare to Disagree' by Margaret Heffernan — I'd recommend watching it.

Set up a culture where no matter whether you're senior or junior, you speak up if you have a concern or an idea. You detect problems much earlier, and as a group you can evolve your direction.

If you're dictating terms, you're not going to evolve. Senior or junior — speak up.

Why Andy Grove Killed the Dress Code

Khosla: One of the reasons Andy Grove at Intel essentially started dress-down, no assigned parking — he wanted an engineer, whether they were junior or senior or a VP, to speak up and not be intimidated. The executives were all wearing ties and coats, and the engineers couldn't speak up. So he got rid of the ties and coats.

Andy Grove killed ties and assigned parking so engineers — junior or senior — would speak up.