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tldr (tim reilly)
@tldr
Founder Archetypes: Jack Sparrow vs. James Bond PG has proposed James Bond as a model of what you're looking for in startup co-founders. The idea is that being calm, resourceful, and effective in a variety of adverse situations is more important than extreme competence in some single domain. I love the directional point, but I think that James Bond can be a pretty intimidating archetype: He is known for not only succeeding, but doing so always with style and charm. I think this is like asking everyone to be a great dancer. I recently watched Pirates of the Caribbean for the first time and it struck me that Jack Sparrow is another interesting model for founders: + He's confident he can run circles around the incumbent (the British Empire) since they've become too rigid and stodgy. + He's light-hearted in near death situations, since pirates are already default-dead. + He's fast-acting, rather than cautious, since he trusts his ability to wiggle out of bad situations when they arise.
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tldr (tim reilly)
@tldr
^ Sam Altman on the James Bond point from the classic "How to Start a Startup" series: "And you definitely need relentlessly resourceful cofounders, but there's a more colorful example that we share at the YC kickoff. Paul Graham started using this and I've kept it going. So, you're looking for cofounders that need to be unflappable, tough, they know what to do in every situation. They act quickly, they're decisive, they're creative, they're ready for anything, and it turns out that there's a model for this in pop culture. And it sounds very dumb, but it's at least very memorable and we've told every class of YC this for a long time and I think it helps them. And that model is James Bond. And again, this sounds crazy, but it will at least stick in your memory and you need someone that behaves like James Bond more than you need someone that is an expert in some particular domain."
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aferg
@aaronrferguson.eth
Huh yeah not a bad analogy at all really
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