Smash Notes
Why Did Garry Tan Start YouTube After Casey Neistat? · Paradox Podcast

Paradox Podcast

Garry Tan — Building the world you want to live in

Garry Tan (@garrytan) is a designer and engineer turned early stage investor as a Managing Partner and co-founder at Initialized Capital. While recording from our coronavirus bunkers, Garry and I chatted about building the world you want to live in, how refugee ancestors has influenced his worldview, navigating the idea maze as a founder, his $200M mistake…

People

Notes

  1. How Are We Doing in Battle Against COVID19 at 4:44

    Garry talks about how we should remember how our institutions reacted to the pandemic and how society's that respect science like South Korea and Taiwan but… Full answer

  2. What the "fifth Estate" at 6:25

    Garry talks about what he and his partner Alexis refer to as the "fifth estate" or the rise of citizen journalism powered by the Internet to get better… Full answer

  3. How Is Initialized Capital Structured at 8:17

    Garry talks about Initialized's remote-first set up and software enabled voting. Full answer

  4. How Did Computers Change Garry Tan's Childhood in Fremont? at 8:53

    Garry Tan grew up in Fremont as a child of immigrants. His father struggled with alcoholism and later got sick from it. Full answer

  5. What Does Garry Tan Miss About Being a Founder at Posterous? at 14:07

    Kyle Tibbitts introduces Garry Tan as an early employee at Palantir and the founder of Posterous, the company Twitter acquired. Full answer

  6. What Was Garry Tan's $200m Mistake at 15:59

    Garry shares a story about how he turned down the opportunity to start a company with his friends and Peter Thiel to stay at Microsoft and how that mistake… Full answer

  7. How Did Immigrant Parents Shape Garry Tan's View of the World? at 24:55

    Garry Tan says both sides of his family spent the twentieth century getting out. Full answer

  8. How Does Garry Tan Say Founders Should Use Chris Dixon's Idea Maze? at 34:07

    Garry Tan points founders to Chris Dixon's essay on the idea maze. Dixon was an angel investor in Tan's 2008 startup. Tan describes the maze as a tournament. Full answer

  9. How Has Fatherhood Changed the Way Garry Tan Works? at 41:43

    Garry Tan says nobody understands parenthood until it happens to them. Full answer

  10. Why Did Garry Tan Start YouTube After Casey Neistat? at 44:47

    Garry Tan started his YouTube videos after he met Casey Neistat in person. He and his cofounder Alexis were already fans of Neistat's channel. Full answer

  11. Does Kyle Still Believe "learning" Is the Most Important Compensation at 48:31

    Kyle talks about a blog post he wrote in 2014 about a "high rate of learning" being the highest form of compensation at a startup and whether he still… Full answer

  12. What Does Garry Tan Believe About Talent That Most Investors Do Not? at 51:45

    Asked for a belief most people do not share, a cousin of Peter Thiel's interview question, Garry Tan rejects the idea that too much capital is chasing too few… Full answer

  13. What Advice Did Garry Tan Get at Sixteen From a San Francisco Agency Founder? at 57:14

    The best advice Garry Tan remembers came at sixteen, interning at an early digital agency in San Francisco. Full answer

Related notes

Related episodes

Plays from this note through the rest of the episode.

Note

Weekly highlights

One letter a week.

The notes worth hearing, with the minute they were said.