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<p>Running a startup can feel a bit like navigating a minefield: The path is riddled with obstacles and one wrong decision can be fatal. Is there a way to avoid it, or at least, to be better prepared for it? We asked the CEOs of four portfolio companies — <a target="_blank" href="/portfolio/weee">Weee!</a>, <a target="_blank" href="/portfolio/wayve">Wayve</a>, <a target="_blank" href="/portfolio/cato-networks">Cato Networks</a>, and <a target="_blank" href="/portfolio/nuro">Nuro</a> — about the advice they would give to their younger selves. Here’s what they told us.</p><p></p><h2>What would you tell your earlier self, the one just beginning their startup journey?</h2><p></p><h4>Larry Liu, Weee!: Learn from first principles, not advice</h4><p>I get asked this question a lot. The short answer is, I don&#039;t have any advice for my younger self. I believe it’s very difficult to learn from other people&#039;s mistakes. My younger self would need to go through the lived experience I had and the mistakes I made to be able to understand the advice. You learn a lot more from reflecting on your own mistakes and successes.</p>

<p>That’s especially true for people like me. I&#039;m a first principles thinker. Whenever people tell me something, I never take it at face value. I always try to understand the context, the situation, what portion of the advice applies to me. If you&#039;re not thinking about some problem, it doesn&#039;t matter what advice I give you, you will not get it. I often read a book repeatedly, but every time I read it, I get different things out of it. The book never changes, but I have. The things I’m thinking about when I read it are different. There are certain books you can&#039;t read at an early age. It&#039;s a waste of time. If you haven&#039;t lived enough, or suffered enough, you won’t understand them. It&#039;s the same thing with advice.</p><p></p><h4>Alex Kendall, Wayve: Focus on substance, relationships, confidence — and empowering others</h4><p>There are a number of things that I feel are most critical. One is to focus on substance over hype, letting your results do the talking. The second is to play the long game, investing in decade-long relationships. You also need to be disciplined about how you spend your money. That means being frugal, but also deploying capital very deliberately in places where you want to produce the fastest outcomes.</p>

<p>Another couple of things that come to mind, especially when I think about advice for the 25-year-old Alex, is to have the confidence to be bold. Operate from a place of opportunity, not a place of fear. And empower those around you: Your job as the leader is to remove constraints from your team, letting those around you leverage your ideas rather than micromanaging them.</p><p></p><h4>Shlomo Kramer, Cato Networks: Forge your own path</h4><p>I would absolutely not tell my younger self anything. The interesting thing about life is the discovery and the experience of things for the first time, whether it is failure or success. I would let my younger self experience things. I wouldn’t tell him what&#039;s going to happen or what he should do. I wouldn’t prescribe a path, as that would be taking away the meaning of that path. When a path is not your choice, it doesn’t have the excitement, the uncertainty.</p>

<p>Some researchers have found there’s a correlation between people who had a difficult relationship with their father and the drive to achieve entrepreneurial success. On the other hand, entrepreneurship is an industry that specializes in mentorship, folks who act as replacement father figures. I had many mentors that I looked up to over the years, but I never listened to them. That tension is very much at the core of the startup experience.</p><p></p><h4>Dave Ferguson, Nuro: Be ready for moments of joy and struggle — beyond what you imagined</h4><p>Buckle up. It’s going to be harder, and more beautiful, than you expect. Starting a company is a bit like having a child. You’ll love it deeply. It will absorb your energy, your attention, your whole being. And you won’t know if it’s going to be okay. If you’re going to be okay. Because it’s a part of you. There will be moments of soaring possibility and moments that nearly break you. You’ll be tested more than you thought possible.</p>

<p>But stay close to your why. And remember how lucky you are to even get this chance; to build something magical, something that will make life better, for millions of people. Something worthy of the struggle. And whenever you can, find beauty in that struggle.</p>

Successful startup CEOs Larry Liu, Alex Kendall, Shlomo Kramer & Dave Ferguson join us to share advice they'd give to their past selves in their early days

Four CEOs share what they would — or wouldn’t — tell their younger selves

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When experience beats advice

Four CEOs reflect on what they would — or wouldn’t —tell their younger selves

Four CEOs reflect on what they would — or wouldn’t —
tell their younger selves