Jason M. Lemkin advises founders on how to handle blunt or snarky feedback from investors and board members. He notes only about 5–10% of people can take tough feedback, shares an anecdote about a snarky response from a VC on Twitter, and urges listeners to "find the truth" in criticism rather than react defensively.
Here's the thing, Kyle. Only 5 or 10% of folks can take tough feedback, especially in today's world. But maybe the meta takeaway for folks is just realize this is a good. It's a good story. Realize for a variety of reasons, when you interact with a board or investors, you may get a type of direct feedback you're not used to for a variety of reasons. Some folks just become surly at a certain point in their career and venture. I mean, literally, I was on Twitter yesterday, I wrote this tweet that got over 500,000 views and this famous VC just wrote that literally must be worth over a billion dollars. And we could figure it out. On Sevon, he just wrote the snarkiest tweet. The snarkiest tweet. And it's not that he's really smart. It's not like there was some truth in his snark, right? From like, why just go off and buy a sports team or like, enjoy your Ferrari collection? Why sit on Twitter and be snarky? To me, just trying to help people. So realize you may get some of that and try to just find the truth in it, right?
