Short talk by Jason M. Lemkin (YouTube) reflecting on startup growth milestones and resilience. Lemkin recounts a conversation with Todd McKinnon (Okta) who said his company only felt 'unkillable' after reaching roughly $30M in revenue; the segment also touches on candid reflections about past mistakes when a company reaches that scale.
And 20, 30 million is pretty far from a founder perspective. Right. I used to think 20 to 30 million was a lot of revenue until I remember talking to Todd McKinnon, who's CEO of Okta, and he said it wasn't until 30 million that he thought they couldn't be killed, that they weren't an early stage startup anymore. And I used to think that was later in the journey. Right. And it was an insight. And it's also about the same time where you can start being honest and say, here's what I screwed up building the 20 VC fund. Here's what I screwed up earlier in my career. Here's what I screwed up in Nvidia versus I'm the world's best compliance software HR manager company in the world. No one wants to hear that. Listen, I agree with you on Jane.
