Jason M. LemkinCEO, SaaStr · Co-Founder of SaaStr AI, SaaStr Fund, Adobe Sign

The Founder of the Year

23 Jan 2024 · 1 min

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0:45

Short spoken commentary by Jason M. Lemkin arguing that the CEO of Nvidia is a clear candidate for “founder of the year,” and using that example to make a broader point: interviews should focus on founders' mistakes, not just successes. Lemkin states he won’t interview founders below about $20–30M in revenue because, in his view, they tend to give promotional answers rather than honest reflections. He cites recent high-profile interviews (e.g., Bezos) as lacking sufficient discussion of mistakes.

Chapters

Best founder of the year. I mean, how could it not be the CEO of Nvidia? Yeah. How can you not have, after all these years, gotten to a trillion dollar market cap and recognize that there's nothing harder on planet Earth than being a founder in the same year? This is why I won't even talk or interview a founder below 20 or 30 million in revenue. Because they're not honest enough. They don't have enough life experience. Right. What do you mean by that, Jason? They're always just selling themselves. Especially if you're doing an interview or discussion. You don't want to hear what's great about Nvidia. You want to hear about the mistakes. The mistakes are what's compelling in any journey. Right. Some folks talked about whether that Bezos interview the other day was compelling or not. Right. I actually thought it was pretty good. But the problem with it is there weren't enough mistakes discussed. Right. That's what's interesting. And I find that founders below 20 or 30 million, all they can do is do a commercial.