
The Venture Mindset
How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth
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Narrated by:
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Will Damron
About this listen
Inspired by venture capitalists’ unique mindset, this is a transformative playbook for delivering extraordinary results in modern organizations, from a Stanford professor and a technology executive.
Behind life changing companies like Amazon, Google, Moderna, SpaceX, and Zoom are Venture Capital investors. VCs are known for their extraordinary ability to spot emerging trends, identify disruptive startups, attract talent, and bring new industries into being.
Ilya Strebulaev has spent the last two decades at Stanford studying VCs’ counterintuitive approaches to decision-making, and the reasons behind the success and failure of corporate innovation efforts. Alex Dang, a senior leader at McKinsey and Amazon, has seen up close the impact VCs’ thinking and mechanisms can have on a business’ success. Together in The Venture Mindset, they present nine distinct principles that can help anyone looking to transform their business and achieve extraordinary results, no matter the industry.
The Venture Mindset is a new mental model where failure is a must, ideas are rejected in their myriads in search of a single winner, due diligence is put on its head, dissent is encouraged, plugs are pulled, and time horizons are extended. It is fundamentally different from the mindset found throughout the rest of the business world. This mindset helps leaders to develop a strong pipeline of ideas, make smarter, quicker decisions, and deliver more value at scale. It’s a must hear for any leader looking to stave off irrelevance and win big in the uncertain world of business today.
*Includes a downloadable PDF of charts and graphics from the book
PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.
©2024 Ilya Strebulaev and Alexey Dang (P)2024 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
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-
Overall
-
Performance
-
Story
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Critic reviews
“The Venture Mindset distills how we—as corporations and individuals—can apply tenets from venture capital to our own lives, transforming traditional organizations into hubs for innovation. The book is full of powerful, practical lessons on changing how we think and act. The authors share many of the lessons I learned the hard way over decades in technology. I found this a digestible, propulsive, and insightful read for those within and beyond the walls of Silicon Valley.”—Eric Schmidt, former CEO and Chairman of Google
“Reserve a spot for this book next to Built to Last. Together they provide a powerful guide for a new generation of leaders.”—Jerry Porras, co-author of bestseller Built to Last
“A compelling playbook for founders of startups and executives seeking to infuse large corporations with the venture mindset. Crisp, practical, and laden with rich examples.”—Hayagreeva Rao, Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Scaling Up Excellence
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Innovations rarely come from “experts.” Elon Musk was not an “electric car person” before he started Tesla. When it comes to improbable innovations, a legendary tech VC told Sebastian Mallaby, the future cannot be predicted, it can only be discovered. It is the nature of the venture-capital game that most attempts at discovery fail, but a very few succeed at such a scale that they more than make up for everything else. That extreme ratio of success and failure is the power law that drives the VC business, all of Silicon Valley, the wider tech sector, and, by extension, the world.
-
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Story
In Scaling Up Excellence, best-selling author Robert Sutton and Stanford colleague Huggy Rao tackle a challenge that determines every organization’s success: scaling up further, faster, and more effectively as a program or an organization creates a larger footprint. Sutton and Rao have devoted much of the last decade to uncovering what it takes to build and uncover pockets of exemplary performance, to help spread them, and to keep recharging organizations with ever-better work practices.
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Not exactly the book I was hoping for
- By Gabriel Afana on 06-19-18
By: Robert I. Sutton, and others
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Founder vs Investor
- The Honest Truth About Venture Capital from Startup to IPO
- By: Elizabeth Joy Zalman, Jerry Neumann
- Narrated by: Elizabeth Joy Zalman, Jerry Neumann, Andrew Magnusson
- Length: 6 hrs and 56 mins
- Unabridged
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Every iconic tech company was once a startup. And while these companies like to paint an origin story full of surefooted confidence, the truth is usually something different: the early life of most startups is pure chaos. This chaos comes from the vastly different motivations and incentives between those with the vision and those with the money. From fundraising paranoia to boardroom coups, Zalman and Neumann train their inimitable voices on the gulf between what founders and investors promise to do and what they end up actually doing.
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Well narrated and straight to the point book
- By Zoryana Tischenko on 06-18-25
By: Elizabeth Joy Zalman, and others
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Venture Deals, 4th Edition
- Be Smarter than Your Lawyer and Venture Capitalist
- By: Brad Feld, Jason Mendelson
- Narrated by: Barry Abrams
- Length: 11 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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The founders and driving force behind the Foundry Group - a venture capital firm focused on investing in early-stage information technology companies - Brad and Jason have been involved in hundreds of venture capital financings. Their investments range from small startups to large Series A venture financing rounds. The new edition of Venture Deals continues to show fledgling entrepreneurs the inner-workings of the VC process, from the venture capital term sheet and effective negotiating strategies to the initial seed and the later stages of development.
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Must read for entrepreneurs trying to raise fund
- By Max Lee on 07-29-20
By: Brad Feld, and others
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Angel
- How to Invest in Technology Startups - Timeless Advice from an Angel Investor Who Turned $100,000 into $100,000,000
- By: Jason Calacanis
- Narrated by: Jason Calacanis
- Length: 8 hrs and 19 mins
- Unabridged
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Over the past 25 years, Jason Calacanis has made a fortune investing in creators, spotting and helping build and fund a number of successful technology start-ups - investments that have earned him tens of millions of dollars. Now, in this enlightening guide that is sure to become the bible for 21st century investors, Calacanis takes potential angels step by step through his proven method of creating massive wealth: start-ups.
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This audio book is worth millions!!
- By BRAD on 07-21-17
By: Jason Calacanis
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Secrets of Sand Hill Road
- Venture Capital and How to Get It
- By: Scott Kupor, Eric Ries
- Narrated by: Sean Runnette
- Length: 9 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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Whether you're trying to get a new company off the ground or scale an existing business to the next level, you need to understand how VCs think. In Secrets of Sand Hill Road, Kupor explains exactly how VCs decide where and how much to invest, and how entrepreneurs can get the best possible deal and make the most of their relationships with VCs. Filled with Kupor's firsthand experiences, insider advice, and practical takeaways, Secrets of Sand Hill Road is the guide every entrepreneur needs to turn their startup into the next unicorn.
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As a founder I can highly recommend it
- By Mark on 07-15-19
By: Scott Kupor, and others
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Growth Levers and How to Find Them
- By: Matt Lerner
- Narrated by: Matt Lerner
- Length: 2 hrs and 18 mins
- Unabridged
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Great startups don't waste time on small stuff. If you study the early days of any great startup, you’ll see that 90% of their growth came from 10% of the stuff they tried. But most needed years of experimentation to find their growth levers. This book aims to shortcut that process. Generic tactics like paid ads, SEO and referral programs will only get you so far. Growth levers are things like the professional photographs that made tens of thousands of customers trust AirBnb when they otherwise wouldn’t—a crucial move that unlocked explosive growth.
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I love new information, and I’ll never forget the lock analogy
- By Ryan Kanaley on 10-08-24
By: Matt Lerner
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Fall in Love with the Problem, Not the Solution
- A Handbook for Entrepreneurs
- By: Uri Levine
- Narrated by: Perry Daniels
- Length: 11 hrs and 48 mins
- Unabridged
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As the cofounder of Waze—the world's leading commuting and navigation app with more than 700 million users to date, and which Google acquired in 2013 for $1.15 billion—Levine is committed to spreading entrepreneurial thinking so that other founders, managers, and employees in the tech space can build their own highly valued companies. Levine offers an inside look at the creation and sale of Waze and his second unicorn, Moovit, revealing the formula that drove those companies to compete with industry veterans and giants alike.
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Ok but not great
- By Didier Vallauri on 01-30-23
By: Uri Levine
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The Friction Project
- How Smart Leaders Make the Right Things Easier and the Wrong Things Harder
- By: Robert I. Sutton, Huggy Rao
- Narrated by: Sean Patrick Hopkins
- Length: 8 hrs and 45 mins
- Unabridged
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Every organization is plagued by destructive friction. Yet some forms of friction are incredibly useful, and leaders who attempt to improve workplace efficiency often make things even worse. Drawing from seven years of hands-on research, The Friction Project by bestselling authors Robert I. Sutton and Huggy Rao teaches readers how to become “friction fixers.”
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not clear purpose
- By Gg on 05-09-24
By: Robert I. Sutton, and others
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Power
- Why Some People Have It—and Others Don't
- By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
- Narrated by: Rick Adamson
- Length: 8 hrs and 4 mins
- Unabridged
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Some people have it, and others don’t. Jeffrey Pfeffer explores why in Power. One of the greatest minds in management theory and author or co-author of thirteen books, including the seminal business-school text Managing With Power, Jeffrey Pfeffer shows listeners how to succeed and wield power in the real world.
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A mediocre book
- By Shayan Fazeli on 02-16-23
By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
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7 Rules of Power
- Surprising—but True—Advice on How to Get Things Done and Advance Your Career
- By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
- Narrated by: Zac Aleman
- Length: 6 hrs and 13 mins
- Unabridged
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In 7 Rules of Power, Jeffrey Pfeffer, professor of organizational behavior at the Stanford University Graduate School of Business, provides the insights that have made both his online and on-campus classes incredibly popular—with life-changing results often achieved in 8 or 10 weeks. Rooted firmly in social-science research, Pfeffer’s 7 rules provide a manual for increasing your ability to get things done, including increasing the positive effects of your job performance.
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Great advice and evidence based perspective
- By Camilo Velasquez on 06-22-23
By: Jeffrey Pfeffer
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The Optimist
- By: Keach Hagey
- Narrated by: Will Damron
- Length: 12 hrs and 21 mins
- Unabridged
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In The Optimist, the Wall Street Journal reporter Keach Hagey presents the most detailed account yet of Altman’s rise, from his precocious childhood in St. Louis to his first, failed startup experience; his time as legendary entrepreneur Paul Graham’s protégé and successor as head of Y Combinator, the start-up accelerator where Altman became the premier power broker in Silicon Valley; the founding of OpenAI and his recruitment of a small yet superior team; and his struggle to keep his company at the cutting edge while fending off determined rivals, including Elon Musk.
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The author is a big fan of Sam
- By Timpboy on 06-28-25
By: Keach Hagey
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The SaaS Playbook
- Build a Multimillion-Dollar Startup Without Venture Capital
- By: Rob Walling
- Narrated by: Rob Walling
- Length: 4 hrs and 14 mins
- Unabridged
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Learn how to compete against large competitors and structure your pricing for maximum growth. Discover the four SaaS Cheat Codes that can dramatically accelerate your business's success. Learn how to avoid common mistakes that SaaS founders make and identify the right marketing approaches for your business.
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Solid
- By Phil Williams on 12-14-23
By: Rob Walling
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Think Faster, Talk Smarter
- How to Speak Successfully When You're Put on the Spot
- By: Matt Abrahams
- Narrated by: Matt Abrahams
- Length: 7 hrs and 11 mins
- Unabridged
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Many of us dread having to convey our ideas to others, often feeling ill-equipped, anxious, and awkward. Public speaking experts help by focusing on planned communication experiences such as slide presentations, pitches, or formal talks. Yet, most of our professional and personal communication occurs in spontaneous situations that creep up on us and all too often leave us flustered and stumbling for words. Stanford lecturer, podcast host, and communication expert Matt Abrahams provides tangible, actionable skills to help even the most anxious of speakers succeed when speaking spontaneously.
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For beginners
- By KnowlegeIsPower on 09-28-24
By: Matt Abrahams
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The Hard Thing About Hard Things
- Building a Business When There Are No Easy Answers
- By: Ben Horowitz
- Narrated by: Kevin Kenerly
- Length: 7 hrs and 57 mins
- Unabridged
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Ben Horowitz offers essential advice on building and running a startup - practical wisdom for managing the toughest problems business school doesn’t cover, based on his popular ben’s blog. While many people talk about how great it is to start a business, very few are honest about how difficult it is to run one. The Hard Thing About Hard Things is invaluable for veteran entrepreneurs as well as those aspiring to their own new ventures, drawing from Horowitz’s personal and often humbling experiences.
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For large company managers, not startups
- By Thomas on 03-18-14
By: Ben Horowitz
Gushing
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Basic VC concepts
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Great audio book
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Great book
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Seems a bit like an advertisement for the authors consulting business.
May have been better as a printed book book if the charts and graphics were more visible. To be fair, I did not check out the PDF that goes along with the audible book.
Mediocre business book
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Need to take risk and how to manage it via a portfolio approach.
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It’s a culture book
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