Proby Shandilya
@ProbyShandilya
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prev @mayfieldfund // collector of interesting ideas
Manhattan, NY
Joined June 2018
what makes the great ones great? in search of excellence vectors….
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Excuse my boldness on this prediction, but this can quite literally become the Tinder for startups. When nontechnical people with cool ideas connect with technical builders with an interest in the same idea, the set of possibilities are infinite.
Describe your task —> get software. We want to make software accessible to everyone so today we are launching a way for you to get things made without writing a single line of code!.
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“If you’re in this business and you’re not exhausted with the analysis you’re doing, the thinking you’re doing, to try to gather this data and try to gather edge, then you’re probably not going to end up on the top of the game.” @altcap.
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“When you hang out with scientists and see how they think, you can’t do so without developing a respect for it. And part of what you respect is their rigor. When you say something, it needs to be right. You can’t just speculate idly about things.” - Cormac McCarthy.
So sad to hear of Cormac McCarthy's passing. Here are two of my favorite articles about him. Rolling Stone profiled his relationship with @sfiscience And here, where his non-fiction ghost writing skills are exposed #Oneofakind #RIP.
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IMO Bessemer is the San Antonio Spurs of venture investing (and @jeremyl is Gregg Popovich). Time-tested methods, a focus on the fundamentals, intellectual honesty, and loads of humility around their operating system and how to best evolve it. Wonderful job @patrick_oshag.
My conversation with Jeremy, Kent and Brian—long term partners at Bessemer Venture Partners. The first half is about building a firm and a team. It’s applicable to any investor. The second half is about investing and what’s interesting now. Enjoy!.
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“People think culture is a lot like architecture when it’s a lot more like gardening.”.
Q: What should you look for in the first 10 hires of a company?. Ben Silbermann (founder of Pinterest) and Patrick & John Collison (co-founders of Stripe) share their answers in the clip below. Ben Silbermann starts it off:. “I think one big misconception is that people think
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“Trying to hire the best people to fill out a coaching staff is not a novel concept—it’s common sense. But look around the league. How many head coaches are actually trying to do this? Not many.”.
Dear NFL owners, no need for a search firm. I've got 11 guidelines that can help you hire the right head coach and avoid the next Patricia/Judge/Meyer. (New and improved this year!). @ringer .
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New project!. Launching my substack newsletter today, called The Latticework: Musings on Mental Models and More! Excited to publish weekly learnings & thoughts on venture, startups, and company-building . Subscribe if this sounds interesting to you!.
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Had a great time presenting my most recent research at #CMSAC19! Huge thanks to Rebecca Nugent, @Stat_Ron, @stat_sam, and @CMUAnalytics for the opportunity to present at CMU. Enjoyed meeting @bcmassey, @StatsbyLopez, @kwvorp, @bmacGTPM, @SabinAnalytics, and many others!
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Founders Fund put 33% of their third fund in Palantir.
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@sama vision without execution is hallucination . I think there are a lot of good ideas out there, but good ideas without nose-to-the-grind builders mean absolutely nothing. I define will as the ability to execute on hard/high risk ideas in the face of uncertainty. That matters most.
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@anuatluru which is why a combination of the two is unstoppable. a tool being able to attract the network, and the network being able to make the tool better in self-perpetuating feedback loop that propagates towards greatness.
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@sonofoguntubi @BrianJJi @bryancsk find work that feels like play to you and work to others. find works that makes you alive internally, not a great system player externally. learn, learn, learn. be obsessed and ambitious. meet people who are like you. cultivate genuine relationships and learn w knowledge osmosis.
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new journey begins today. can’t put into words how excited I am. LFG!!.
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This is now become a weekday night tradition since getting on Clubhouse. Always excited for @GoodTimeShowCH with @sriramk and @aarthir, looking forward to hearing @benthompson tonight!
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I’m calling it right now— @TheManMikeTan and @AbhayVenkatesh1 are powerful duo akin to the Munger & Buffett, Eugene Kleiner & Tom Perkins, and Kahneman & Tversky duos that have pioneered greatness in the past. Insanely bullish on what’s to come. If you’re in SF, don’t miss out.
It was great hosting this group of amazing builders and founders in AI — it’s magical what can happen when you get extraordinary people in the same room. If you want to join us, DM @AbhayVenkatesh1.
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Am missing sports analytics conferences and being able to learn from some of the brightest minds in the field, such as @StatsbyLopez and @StatsInTheWild!
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"Future returns from funds deployed in 2023 and 2024 vintage years, with declining entry prices and more orthogonal investment strategies, may prove to be the very best in nearly a generation." - @wolfejosh.
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A question I love to ask people:. Are your motivation systems fear-based or joy-based?. Those with the former are playing a finite game because they’ll stop playing it the second the fear dissipates; those with the latter are playing an infinite game because the act of playing is.
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"There is something anti-tribal about this form of scientific progress, a reminder that our daily zero-sum international politics and economic battles can actually be positive sum in the asymptote." - @DannyCrichton . Great read.
JUST OUT: new quick read from Lux: “Scientific sublime”.
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New article! On LeBron James breaking the NBA's all-time scoring record and what it can teach all of us about human progress and human authenticity. Check it out!.
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@PhilzCoffee NYC. I’ve tried so many coffee shops here but nothing compares to Philz back home.
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The early Houston Rockets front office (05ish time frame) is like the PayPal mafia of sports analytics and front office strategy in general. Morey. Hinkie. Monte McNair. Sachin Gupta. Gersson Rosas. Eli Witus. And I’m probably forgetting a few as well.
#lightthebeam one more time for @mmcnair Executive of the Year! . Your prize is irrationally high expectations in the future
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This might be the single biggest reason I’m such a huge Kobe fan, and the aspect of going all-in and pouring your entire self into something may be the vector on which KB has influenced me the most. Failure is only failure when you decide it’s failure. Persistence pays off.
Incredible quote from Kobe Bryant on dreams, fear, and going for it:
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Always nice to see positive sum games being played— @djrosent @gilbert @patrick_oshag are some of my heroes in this space and I’ve learned so much from them. @artofinvest is slowly making its way into that set of my favorite listens— couldn’t have thought of better guests than.
1) It was super fun to do this with Rick and Paul. 2) These days I'm lucky if 1x/year I find a new pod that I actually love, and @artofinvest is it. The first ep with Todd Combs is an absolute banger and knowing what's coming, AOI will be top of my player for a long time to come.
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@jackmmcclelland not against the metaverse directly, but against the hypothesis that people will care more about their online lives than their IRL ones. actual human interaction is irreplaceable: technologies like the metaverse can act as a great complement to it, but not a substitute.
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“Productivity tools have incremental effect while focus has revolutionary effect”. Incredible line.
Had no idea that one of the greatest biographers of our generation just writes out million-word books by hand and then transcribes his pages with a typewriter. Another good reminder that productivity tools have incremental effect while focus has revolutionary effect
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Reminds me of the Buffett notion of reading 10Ks and 10Qs for 364 days out of the year and making highly consequential decisions, ie swinging for the fences, once a year. Different personality types & temperaments map themselves to different jobs in the ecosystem.
Marc Rowan on Apollo's Investment Process. So, I'll describe our business. Our business, like the real estate business and like some other business, is hours of boredom followed by moments of terror. We really only make 20 decisions a year. That's all we do. And so we have a
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@jackmmcclelland don’t think there’s a singular “best” model— if there were, everyone would adopt it and the ecosystem would be homogenous . I think it all depends on the operating system of the firm (people, processes, culture) and what opportunities they best map to. playing different games.
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If there’s one thing I hope people say about me when I die . It’s “I’ve never met anyone who loves their craft more than this person”.
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@BrianJJi @paulg @sama @paulg is one of the best VCs to ever do it. especially because he expresses himself less as a traditional investor and more as a company-builder, in the purest sense. his prescience + judgement on people is incomprehensibly good. another example of this is with @amasad / @Replit.
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Many great products evolve by the model of “come for the product, stay for the community” and I think the same may be true for podcasts. I am now 10x more energized to listen to @AcquiredFM because of the conversations I had with fellow business nerds who love the podcast.
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Happy to have published my 2nd book, "Surrounding Factors 2.0: Beyond Skillset"!
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old but gold article from @sperand_io :. "Companies like Stripe and Twilio set themselves apart not only by the sheer amount of operative complexity they’re able to put behind an API, but because of how elegant, simple, and downright pleasant their APIs are to use for developers.
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@kokoxsu @johndoerr @vkhosla @peterthiel @lukenosek @wolfejosh @peterjhebert @FutureJurvetson soon enough you gonna be on that list too . mark my words.
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Unfortunately wasn’t able to make #SSAC2020, but was great watching @AlokPattani talk about using Google Cloud to advance sports analytics on the Sloan Sports Analytics livestream!
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@thedulab I’m not a fan of the term “networking”. Makes things seem too transactional. I love genuine relationships that compound over time, with people who I can authentically pour my entire self into. Best way to foster these imo is serendipity— can’t be forced, has to happen naturally.
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Knew from the first day of college that Smit was one of the rare people playing an infinite game. He compounds knowledge & insight faster than most people, and all emanates authentically, from a genuine love for sports. Just the beginning! Huge congrats brotha, am proud :).
If you told younger me I'd be invited to the NFL Combine as a junior in college I'd start lacing my cleats :). So grateful we were named the undergrad finalist for the 2024 NFL #BigDataBowl !!.
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talked about this with @davidjrbrill the first time I met him. absolutely agree. killers don’t lose— it’s the best venture bet you can possibly make because they will somehow find a way to win. IMO killer + authenticity is the ultimate combo— finite vs infinite game.
Have heard number of VCs mention founders that were absolute “killers”. What does a “killer mindset” entail / look like? . A few thoughts: . 1/ Knowing exact milestones to next value inflection point for their business; constantly aware what will move the needle for the.
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The days are long but the years are really, really short.
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Can’t help but notice that @wolfejosh early intuition around NVIDIA was likely informed by his time spent around real technical research / at the bleeding edge of technology . Spend time where others chose not to be to be able to see things others can’t see. Moat.
Correct. 5 year psychological bias. Everyone wants to be TODAY .where they should have been 5 years ago….
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Be so obsessed with your craft that betting against you is a mathematically irrational decision to make.
Work so hard it’s impossible to bet against you.
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@sonofoguntubi @BrianJJi @bryancsk over time, because you love what you do and work feels like play, you’ll be able to work significantly more than the average person because you cultivate the flow state . you embrace randomness and serendipity + create your own luck, and the right opportunities will arise.
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We can't solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
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"My whole life has been spent trying to teach people that intense concentration for hour after hour can bring out in people resources they didn't know they had." - Edwin Land (thanks @FoundersPodcast).
How id Software churned out game after game: setting constraints and allowing no distractions. John Romero: "We could scope down really well. We knew what to cut. And there was no internet, no one had cell phones, there was complete and total focus because our phone never rang.
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Will be thinking of @Stat_Ron's NFL Analytics workshop and @StatsbyLopez's keynote on NFL next-gen player tracking data at #CMSAC19 while watching my hometown @49ers try to continue their undefeated season against the 7-2 @Seahawks!.
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bullish on Flatiron / Union Sq area. tons of people based near Madison Sq park.
@RobxBroderick interesting, i was thinking the flatiron / union square area since a lot of VC and founder offices are there. we'll need to all agree on the we want to settle, haha.
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“To live in the present moment is the highest calling, the source of all happiness.” - @naval.
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Generative drive . People who are driven intrinsically always outlast people who are driven extrinsically for a simple reason— the work is fun, so they’ll end up working more. The hours compound, as does the quality of those hours.
Having fun is a performance enhancing drug.
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“Be fearful when others are greedy, be greedy when others are fearful.” - Munger. It’s hard to win in consumer. But the greatest product artists with the depth of insight & magnetism none of us can possibly imagine do exist, and they’ll build generational businesses.
At this point, even the slightest mention of consumer seems to give people an allergic reaction: . people are so irrationally against consumer right now which makes me think that perhaps consumer is one of the most exciting spaces for startups going forward.
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Max is a special dude. His unique combination of deep knowledge of the game, a talented quantitative mind, and intellectual humility about what’s there to be learned— is one that makes him immensely valuable for any organization. Don’t forget the name Maxwell Resnick.
It has been a dream of mine to work in an MLB front office since I was a little kid. I cannot wait to turn that dream into a reality. I am thrilled to announce that I will be joining the Philadelphia Phillies this summer as a Quantitative Analyst Associate. #RingTheBell
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Revisiting this gem. "Human entrepreneurial ambition to fund a better way is nature's infinite problem solver.".
11/ Indefinitely Modified Paths—the wisdom of William James & Jurassic Park. “Life finds a way”… and so do incredible founders .in every cutting-edge industry we find + fund…
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I'm definitely late to this, but I just discovered the class curriculum of the SYMSYS 161 course that @zavaindar and @nanli taught at Stanford back in 2016. An absolute goldmine.
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“It doesn’t matter where you start. The only thing that matters is the slope.” - @ericvishria.
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The best thing about the Silicon Valley: unbounded future possibility. There is no limit. Positive sum view of the world.
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"A 16 year-old kid building games on Roblox has a major edge against a trader on wall street reading McKinsey’s “Future of Gaming” report. Passion can generate alpha, and if you are passionate about an industry, you have the ability to make real money." - @MayaBakhai . 💯.
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Played poker for a few hours last night, and now suddenly realizing how many the lessons the game offers for life. We have minimal control over the cards we’re dealt, but it’s up to us how we play them - which matters the most.
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Loved talking to @astros GM James Click this morning! Enjoyed hearing his perspective on the relationship between process and outcomes, mitigating cognitive biases in decision-making, and learning from other sports! Best of luck to him and the team for a great upcoming season
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Class act by @jimgoetz. There’s a reason why him and @chandna are two of the best in the game. @loganbartlett do a joint episode with these two legends. Would be an absolute treat to hear the three of you riff on all things venture & company-building.
**Incubated @GreylockVC and @sequoia. A powerful example of VC firms teaming (rather than competing). Honored to have been on this journey with @chandna & @GreylockVC.
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Common trait of the greatest performers: they love what they do, a passion that borderlines obsession . How can you outwork someone who sees their work as play?.
Steve Jobs is saying if you can effectively move Earning out of "Duty" and into almost Leisure-like (obviously it'll never be truly leisure). Your ability to work is unbounded b/c leisure activities give us energy while duty/earning/learning sap it.
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A players work with A players. B players work with C players.
Warren Buffett: It’s simple— to be a winner, work with winners:
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Sports is a goldmine for leadership lessons. Love what I've seen from Brock Purdy and Trevor Lawrence this weekend.
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I view venture as the fight against the trappings of convention. The trappings of convention being the notion that things are the way they are because that’s how they’ve always been. This is the biggest inhibitor to traversing the vast space of unrealized potential & progress.
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Damn. I missed NYC. This high stress, chaotic, pro-entropic environment somehow brings out the best in me. It’s going to be a beautiful year with great energy and great vibes. So excited :).
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Will be back in the Bay Area tomorrow. 2 days until I can have a cup of @PhilzCoffee. Words can't explain how excited I am.
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I think there’s something to be said about the Warriors longevity. Steph is 35, Draymond is 33, and Klay is 33– yet they have the capacity to collectively turn on the gas whenever they want to. Not sure when the Last Dance will be, but gotta enjoy this team while they last.
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Applies to all great art. The magnetism lends itself as a self-creative force. The artist just needs to have the intuition to tune into those subtle notes and follow it to where it leads.
"Great songs write themselves. You’re just being led by the nose, or the ears. The skill is not to interfere with it too much. Ignore intelligence, ignore everything; just follow it where it takes you. You really have no say in it, and suddenly there it is" - Keith Richards, 80
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Constantly amazed by the passion Koko and Brian have for deep tech, innovations at the bleeding edge of what’s possible truly turning sci-fi into sci-fact. Great work @koko_xu_ @BrianMikeWu excited for what’s to come. always love seeing learning machines operating in their zone.
Sharing some WIP market research that @BrianMikeWu and I have been working on:. 🤖 Robotics is benefitting from decreasing hardware costs + increasing software capabilities --> many application opportunities in agriculture, consumer, industrial etc.
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Love the days where I’m sitting in coffee shops going down rabbit holes and all of a sudden 3 hrs have passed.
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