Bill Gurley on how to become a world-class entrepreneur

The first one is the one that I can provide the least amount of help with you about because I don't know what your passions are. But my first piece of advice would be to find your passion. Pick a profession of which you have a deep personal interest. There's nothing that's going to make you be more successful than if you love doing what you're doing. Because you're going to work harder than anybody else because it's not going to feel like work, it's going to feel like fun. So I think this is the most important decision you can possibly make in a career to make sure you have immense passion for what you're doing. This should be your personal passion, not your parents, not your sisters, not your family generation of expectation. It needs to be something that you're doing on your own. It might be that you're passionate about the same thing as your parents. So like, don't you have to run from them? But you need to know that this is something you're doing on your own. And then I also mentioned status and compensation. You know, there are a lot of high profile careers that make a lot of money and are generally perceived to be areas where successful people go. But if you run at those things and don't have a passion for them, you're going to burn out eventually. It's not going to be where you want to be. And the last point is just you can't fake it like somebody else sitting in some other MBA program has a deep passion for whatever career path you're going down and they're going to smoke you if you don't have it yourself. This is one of my favorite quotes from Bobby Knight. He says everybody has the will to win. People don't have the will to practice. And I think this is the test for whether or not you're actually pursuing your dream job, which is the essence of it. That would be considered studying or work or practice. Do you enjoy that part? Do you enjoy the preparation? Everybody enjoys winning. Do you enjoy the preparation? The second of the five guidelines I'd have for you is hone your craft constantly. It's extremely important to be obsessive about understanding everything you possibly can about your craft. Consider it an obligation. Right? Hold yourself accountable. That requires you to keep learning over time. Study the history. Know the pioneers. It's the bedrock foundation for what you're going to build upon. And it will help you in networking that you're able to talk the language of the people that came before you. Strive to know more than everyone else. About your particular craft, and that can be in a subgroup. And what do I mean by that? Let's say you love esports. Let's just say you've decided, you know, multiplayer gaming, esports, like, this is it for you. You grew up gaming. I love it. All right. Within the first six months of being in this program, you should be the most knowledgeable person at McCombs in esports. Like, that's doable. You should be able to do that. And then by the end of your first year, you should be top five of all MBA students. And hopefully when you exit your second year, you're number one of any MBA student out there. Doesn't mean you're the best esports person in the world, but you've separated yourself from everyone else that's out there. It's not, I can't make you the smartest or the brightest, but it's quite doable to be the.