Knowledge Project

Key Takeaways 

• Be the same person at work as you are at home 
• Earned success is the key to happiness
• Understand that reality hits you at every moment and that there are costs to not embracing it
• Understand what it is you are actually betting on when you make an investment 
• Write about the topics that you actually care about; do not write about what you think someone else will think is interesting 
• “It’s easier to hold your principles 100 percent of the time than it is to hold them 98 percent of the time.” – Dr. Clayton Christensen
• Leaders often spend more time worrying about the 95% of people delivering 10% of the value compared to worrying about the 5% of people that deliver 90% of the value
• Your role as a leader might be to find a handful of people that will change the trajectory of a company 
• “The main thing is keeping the main thing the main thing.” – Jim Barksdale
• Good decision-makers do not confuse activity with insight 
• You can bounce back from any mistake other than a mistake of integrity 
• “I think all you can really do as a leader of a company is have people believe that the decisions you’re making are always in the best interest of the company.” – Ravi Gupta 

Read the full notes @ podcastnotes.org



One of the main jobs Ravi Gupta has as a partner at venture capital giant Sequoia Capital is to help founders see the difference between fantasy and reality. On this episode of The Knowledge Project, Gupta dives deep into a wide range of topics that will help you better understand the realities of success, decision making, why it’s crucial to practice doing things you don’t want to do, the best advice he ever received, and the value of quality over quantity.   Gupta has served as a partner at Sequoia Capital since 2019. Prior to joining the world of venture capital he served as the Chief Operating Officer and Chief Financial Officer for Instacart, and he also spent a decade working in private equity with KKR & Co. 

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