Greylock introduced the co-instructors and the focus of the class on building large, transformational companies at global scale, beyond just starting up.
The class will examine the importance of networks, scaling revenue/customers/organizations, and the different stages of company scale (Family, Tribe, Village, City, Glue Factory) based on LinkedIn's journey as an example.
Key principles at the early Family stage include focusing on product, people, and ensuring you can pay employees, while being willing to do things that don't scale initially to get traction.
Meeting Notes:
Introduction and Context
Greylock introduced the 3 co-instructors - Alan (co-founder of LinkedIn), Chris Yeh (co-author of "The Alliance" book), and John Lilly (former CEO, partner at Greylock)
This class builds on 3 traditions: 1. Business for Computer Scientists course at Stanford, 2. Entrepreneurship courses at Stanford, 3. CS183C by Peter Thiel (book "Zero to One") and Sam Altman (Y Combinator startup school)
The focus is on how to build large, transformational companies at global scale, going beyond just starting up
Importance of Networks and Scaling in Silicon Valley
Networks and connections are critical for success, especially in Silicon Valley's ecosystem
There is an accelerating trend of impactful, global companies emerging from Silicon Valley
Scaling revenue, customers, organizations is key - this is what makes Silicon Valley unique
The class will examine the strategies, risks, opportunities and decisions involved in scaling
Categorizing the Stages of Company Scale
Outlined 5 stages of scaling: Family (3-15 employees), Tribe (15-100), Village (100s), City (1000s), Glue Factory (10,000+)
Different aspects like people, products, go-to-market evolve at each stage
Used LinkedIn's journey as examples to illustrate the stages
Key Principles at the Family Stage
Focus on: Product - Iterating and getting product-market fit, People - Hiring the initial team, getting employees to join, Ensuring you can pay employees
Do things that don't scale initially to get traction (e.g. Airbnb going door-to-door, hiring photographers)
Don't try to pre-solve every problem, learn and adapt quickly
Greylock's Advice: "If you're not embarrassed by your first product release, you've released too late"
Key Takeaways from LinkedIn's Scaling Journey (example shared by Greylock)
In the Family stage, had a single product idea, hired friends/former colleagues, ran lean operations
Shifted to Tribe stage around 30-40 employees, added functions like customer service, sales, ops
At ~100 employees, broke into 5 R&D groups to explore new product areas while maintaining core
Brought in experienced executive hires for enterprise sales
Founder/CEO transitions (Reid -> Greylock -> Reid again as examples)
Village stage: Formalized processes, strategy under new CEO Jeff Weiner
City stage: Scaled to 8500+ employees, expanded to 27 countries, customer growth from overseas
Greylock emphasized there is no single clean path, quotes like "If you're not embarrassed by your first product, you've launched too late" were more relevant early on
The early focus areas for a startup should be product, people and ensuring you can pay employees. Other concerns like competition, analytics, pricing strategy are lower priority initially.