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  • So I was 30 years old and I had never taken um a single business class and, and I've never taken any marketing classes.

  • And, um and, and I've never used, never used the, at the time it wasn't powerpoint, it was called persuasion.

  • Um on the, on the Mac, it was called persuasion.

  • And so, um I bought a Mac so I could, I could use persuasion.

  • And um uh and uh uh and then I tried to create a, a company presentation to take it to venture capitalists.

  • Um The process kind of went like this.

  • We uh started my first official day of work was my 30th birthday, February 17th.

  • And um uh we got the company funded.

  • And so once we got started, the question is, what are we gonna do?

  • You know, how does it all work out?

  • How do we start the company?

  • And so, um we met every day, the three of us uh in, in one of the founders townhouse in Fremont and um and we would get together and, and there would be nothing to do.

  • I mean, what do you do?

  • You get three guys get together, you just talk you know, so, so what did you guys do last night?

  • Uh you know, what did you have for dinner?

  • I mean, so you talk about that for about six months?

  • Ok.

  • And, and the big event of the day would be um, hey, where do you guys want to go to for lunch?

  • And so, you know, Philly cheese steak today or, you know, Chinese food tomorrow or whatever, that would be like a big deal.

  • And then after a while it was like, could you put some doughnuts in the fridge in the morning for when we come?

  • I mean, so that would be a big deal for a while.

  • And so that lasted for a few months.

  • Just the three of us like that.

  • I know it sounds pathetic but it's, it's, it's true because at that time, I'm reading about books on how to start companies and I'm trying to figure out, you know, how to go raise money and, you know, what's a venture capitalist and how do you incorporate the company and those kind of things pretty soon.

  • Uh I met a, I met a, met a lawyer, went to a, went to a law firm called Cooly God.

  • And um uh they helped us incorporate the company uh and um uh the amount of money that he, he, he says, um, you know, we need, we need some money from you so that we could price the shares and also to incorporate the company.

  • So he says, how much money do you have in your pocket?

  • I said, $200.

  • So he says, ok, give me $200.

  • I gave him $200 and for $200 I bought, um, 15% I think it was 20% of NVIDIA.

  • So it was, it was a good deal.

  • Yeah.

  • 20%.

  • Yeah.

  • And then I went, I went back to the house and then went back to the condo and, and uh they all, they both gave me $200 and they both got 20% and that's how it worked.

  • Literally, it's not that much more, you know, don't, here, here's, here's the thing.

  • And Vidian, I never finished my business plan.

  • I know it.

  • I know it.

  • Um We, we, we never finished um uh a business plan.

  • Uh Never could figure out how to finish a business plan to tell you the truth.

  • Um And uh and, and if, if uh if I would have finished that book and I, I went to, went to Borders and got um uh Gordon Bell's book, How To Start a high tech company.

  • It's like this thick, if I would have read the whole thing, I would have been dead.

  • Now, we would have run out of money, ran out of time.

  • And so I, I, I read, I read the first three or four chapters and I, you know, I, I gotta go to work.

  • So, so I, I um uh incorporated, the company, they introduced us to um two venture capitalists.

  • Um, and I just went to their office and told them what I like to do.

  • Uh, the, the thing that, that gets the company funded and when you're, uh, when you get to that point, you just have to remember a few things.

  • Uh V CS don't invest in, in business plans because business plans are easy to write.

  • I couldn't write it but other people could.

  • Right.

  • And so so, um they invest in this, they invest in great people.

  • And so the, so the question is, is, do they trust you, uh your reputation matters, your history matters.

  • Um Because, uh because I had done so much work with um Andy Bechdel, which was another graduate of Stanford of Stanford and the founder of Sun.

  • Uh and the, and worked with uh the founders of Synopsis and L SI Logic and they, and, you know, we, we, we were all very successful and we did good work.

  • Um Your reputation will precede you even if your business plan writing skills are, are, you know, inadequate.

  • And the second thing is you need to have a vision that's sufficiently large to invest in because their statistics, their probability of success is rather low.

  • And if they need to put in $10 million if the market is only $20 million large, they'll never get that $10 million back with reasonable return.

  • But if it's a $200 billion market, then of course, it's a rather different thing.

  • OK.

  • So the size of the market and they want to know that, that at least there is a clever idea that the market has never, never done before.

  • So that last part is probably second, you know, last I said, I said it last because also I think it's the least important.

  • You have to, you might have to reinvent yourself over time.

  • And if you want to reinvent yourself, you need to have great people.

  • That's why great people is so important.

So I was 30 years old and I had never taken um a single business class and, and I've never taken any marketing classes.

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