What we believe at Founders Fund is that technology is a way to help everybody on the planet.
The genius of the American Founders was to create an intricate system of balanced powers both within the state and between state and society – a system that has fostered unprecedented political, social, and intellectual freedom.
I’d like to see the word ‘entrepreneur’ knocked off its pedestal. Being ‘entrepreneurial’ is something I look for not only in founders to invest in, but also employees to hire.
If the founders of a start-up are considering selling it, I’d advise them to consider the synergies. Could the buyer give you access to something you don’t have now, like a certain technology? Would it make your life easier? Are you looking for a change? Things will change, so you have to be ready for that.
The Founders were anything but demigods to themselves and their contemporaries, who recognized full well that the experiment in self-government had only begun.
As a member of Congress, a coequal branch of government designed by our founders to provide checks and balances on the executive branch, I believe that lawmakers must fulfill our oversight duty as well as keep the American people informed of the current danger.
My battles have been against federal actions that exceed the powers our Founders granted to the federal government in the constitution.
Increase your company’s average talent with each hire – founders tend to be pretty smart but willing to take on risk. Employees should be a lot smarter and less risk averse.
Speaking personally, as a first-time female founder, I would not be where I am today without an incredible network of fellow founders who have shared their challenges, advice, and hacks with me.
For the record, I believe elected officials should talk about faith. Our founders believed the moral principles of faith were indispensable to our nation’s survival. The Declaration of Independence mentions God four times.
Our flag honors those who have fought to protect it, and is a reminder of the sacrifice of our nation’s founders and heroes. As the ultimate icon of America’s storied history, the Stars and Stripes represents the very best of this nation.
The Second Amendment is, of course, very much part of the American fabric. But the intent of the founders was that the amendment protected the rights of citizens to bear arms in a militia for their collective self-defense.
But, neither of these educational scenarios worked for us, so when we started a family, we wanted a different school for our children. And the other founders felt the same way.
When tillage begins, other arts follow. The farmers, therefore, are the founders of human civilization.
Our Founders warned against this. They said don’t… that your liberty is only as secure as the people are. Because once they, um, get the ability to vote themselves entitlements from the largesse of the government, liberty is done; freedom is over with. We were warned. We are there.
Big-government proponents embrace both the power of the federal government and the idea that millions of Americans ought to be dependent on its largesse. It’s time to return to our Founders’ love for small government. More is not always better.
Founders Den provides the kind of collaborative and creative atmosphere to foster new ideas not only for emerging new businesses, but government as well.
We have allowed an unholy alliance of government – the new monarchy – and corporate influence – the new aristocracy – to take control of events in a way that would have made our Founders shudder.
America is fundamentally exceptional. No one in the history of the world had ever done anything to compare with what the Founders did, creating a fragile mechanism by which men and women could actually govern themselves.
The Founders didn’t mention political parties when they wrote the Constitution, and George Washington in essence warned us against them in his Farewell Address.
Founders have continually struggled with and adapted the ‘big business’ tools, rules, and processes taught in business schools when startups failed to execute ‘the plan,’ never admitting to the entrepreneurs that no startup executes to its business plan.
Conservatives cannot deny that our Founders intended the judiciary as an equal and independent branch of government purposed to ensure the protection of every citizen’s rights.
‘E pluribus unum’ is perhaps the most obnoxious motto the Founders could have come up with, as far as liberals are concerned. They don’t mind the e pluribus part – they love to note the things that divide and separate us. But they positively despise the unum part.
Founders always say, ‘I’m going to ‘make my thing go viral’ – that doesn’t mean just adding a share button.
It is an intellectual and moral vacuity that has crippled what the World Social Forum’s founders sincerely hoped would produce some sort of democratic alternative to what they saw as the heartless corporate model of globalization.
When I meet with the founders of a new company, my advice is almost always, ‘Do fewer things.’ It’s true of partnerships, marketing opportunities, anything that’s taking up your time. The vast majority of things are distractions, and very few really matter to your success.
The Founders recognized that Government is quite literally a necessary evil, that there must be opposition, between its various branches, and between political parties, for these are the only ways to temper the individual’s greed for power and the electorates’ desires for peace by submission to coercion or blandishment.
Great companies start because the founders want to change the world… not make a fast buck. Call me a romantic, but I think entrepreneurs should try to change the world. This comes from working at Apple… old habits die hard.
I’m still one who says that we can get rid of the Internal Revenue Service if we would pass the fair tax, which is a tax on consumption rather than a tax on people’s income, and move power back where the founders believed it should have been all along.
Newscorp has always been, for us, very easy to work with and they respect our opinions and let us run the site we wanted to. And, in fact, they wanted to keep us on. They weren’t saying, hey, let’s throw these guys out. They were buying into what MySpace was and the founders, and so it’s been very good for me.
The Senate was an odd compromise between the founders and the early leaders of the republic who wanted a single house which was based on popular sovereignty representing the people and those founders who wanted two houses, the upper house, the Senate, being the more aristocratic.
America’s founders knew the importance of allowing the people to speak critically about government actions.
Each company is different because they get their DNA from the founders.
Americans are right to wonder if, at long last, what George Washington called the Great Experiment has failed, and that our founders have lost their extraordinary wager that regular people could govern themselves better than a few rich men could.
The Internet has made us richer, freer, connected and informed in ways its founders could not have dreamt of. It has also become a vector of attack, espionage, crime and harm.
I believe in our country. Fiercely. And our institutions are the bones that keep us upright. We can and must restore decency to our system – and that requires the exercise of the checks and balances intended by our Founders.
Trade protectionism has an American lineage dating back to the Founders; that lineage is distinct from white nationalism.
I get a lot of criticism for telling founders to focus first on making something great, instead of worrying about how to make money. And yet that is exactly what Google did. And Apple, for that matter. You’d think examples like that would be enough to convince people.
Our mission is to help founders and anyone or anything that helps founders helps us with our mission.
Many great founders have one or more big failures on their track record. What makes them great is that they eventually succeed despite that.
I care deeply about the long-term success of the firm and believe my decision to resign is the best decision in the interests of the Sherpa Capital family of team members, founders, and LPs.
For all founders, going public is a momentous milestone that has to be experienced to be fully understood. It is the culmination of years of hard work and personal sacrifice.
I said, ‘Who said African American founders can’t build a billion dollar company?’
Petra Kelly is my inspiration, one of the founders of the German Greens.
Early-stage startups are all about the founders and team.
It’s important for founders to think about how they would build their company from scratch – again.
Our nation was not founded because we all looked alike, or prayed alike, or descended from the same family tree. But our founders, in their genius, in this, the oldest constitutional democracy, put forth on this earth the idea that all are created equal; that we all have inalienable rights.
If we can return to a government that the Founders, in their wisdom, envisioned for us, we can return to a government that will allow our economy to thrive again, and our people to live in liberty.
I don’t subscribe to the idea that the founders or anyone else were somehow better than us and that we have to live up to their example.
