This content was created by Dave Kashen. This content was uploaded by Dave Kashen. This is a YouTube video titled "Success Beyond Talent: The Role of Decision, Timing, and Self Worth #innergame #podcast #fortune500" (posted 2026-01-11). The excerpt is a conversational segment between an unnamed interviewee/speaker (labeled SPEAKER A) and Dave Kashen in which they reflect on success, timing, luck versus talent, personal comparisons to peers (mentioning Jeff Bezos and other tech founders), and the danger of equating personal worth with company outcomes. Dave Kashen adds examples from his own startup experience (sold to Cisco in 2016; nearly sold to Zoom) and gives advice to entrepreneurs about timing and self-value.
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Jeff Bezos could have been 20% dumber and still had the same outcome. And it wouldn't— you wouldn't be able to like— you wouldn't be able to predict it. There'd be no correlative, you know, in my science. My— the science is in my brain. The math is all in my brain, but I'm not able to articulate it with scientific terminology. But like, there is not as much of a correlation there. And what does that mean? You know, what does that mean for me? Well, for me, what that means is that like my life has taken me on this path. I am an N of 1. As I go through life, I make decisions that fit me really well.
Yeah.
And I cannot assume that that is going to lead to X, Y, or Z levels of success like compared to others. But I can assume, and I do assume, that because I know that I'm sufficiently talented and I'm doing a good job and I'm doing my best, like I will get what I— what I will get something that will be sufficient for me. And, you know, that I think is kind of the lesson that you have to come to at some point. And am I 100% there? No, I still compare myself to all my friends who, you know, I have friends who run a billion-dollar company and are worth, you know, 10x more than me. And they got to do it, you know, from 0 to 1, like 0 to 100. I went 0 to 5. I didn't get 5 to 100. And that is some— a chip on my shoulder a little bit. But I think I also am just like, yeah, that's kind of what happened. And like, you know, I, I still mostly, for the vast majority of my time, think of myself as just like a really happy person today and not very driven by this comparison or self— even self-comparison of how good am I.
One thing you're pointing to is we're just human, and the human mind tends to compare, and Notice it doesn't tend to compare to all the billions of people who are quote worse off than us. It just compares to the few people we can find that are quote better off. Um, also really appreciating your comment on timing. You know, my last startup was a meeting software company that we sold to Cisco in 2016 and almost sold to Zoom actually in 2016. And had we started 2, 3 years later, like I think it would have been a really, really different outcome. And, you know, certainly didn't know COVID was coming. So timing really does matter. And I think if there's a, there's probably several takeaways, but if there's a core takeaway that I would want entrepreneurs listening, it's that you make it mean so much more about you than it actually means. Like you make it so personal and it's, it's not that personal to your point. Like whether you end up Larry, Sergey, Jeff Bezos, Elon, Sam, you know, like, or something else is, is not truly a reflection of how valuable you are as a human. I mean, not at all. I believe all humans are equally valuable. And so that mistake of equating your value to the value of your company is a, I think, is a major trap.
