43 min

Ep 87: Building Evernote, Startup Success is Worse than Startup Failure & Why Blockchain is Bullsh*t | Phil Libin (co-founder, Evernote, mmhmm & All Turtles‪)‬ So This Is My Why

    • Careers

STIMY 87 features Phil Libin. Some things he’s most known for:
Co-founder and CEO of Evernote, which he grew to become a beloved product for hundreds of millions of users
Managing Director at General Catalyst
Co-founder and CEO of All Turtles, a globally distributed product studio
Co-founder of mmhmm, an all-in-one platform for making, watching, and talking on videos

This is an episode that’s all about startups, growth, regret and why Phil hates the metaverse & thinks blockchain is bullshit and “communist propaganda”.

Here’s a little background:
Phil Libin was 8 years old when he moved from Leningrad (now St Petersburg) to Parkchester, New York as a refugee. His parents were both classical musicians and he lived in a fairly dangerous neighbourhood in the Bronx.

Despite being a self-described “punchable” kid (he was poor, very physically uncoordinated and didn’t speak English well), he did well in school, earned good money doing repair work and freelance programming and sold his first company, Perseus Data systems, for $500.

But at the same time, he also got fired from his job selling ice-cream and took 30 years to get his Bachelors degree!

Why?

How?

What?

Here are the highlights:
3:43 Moving to New York as Russian immigrants
4:52 Being fired from his job selling ice-cream
6:11 Taking 30 years to complete his degree?!
8:15 Working with essentially the same core group of friends to build 5 startups
11:13 Selling Engine5 for $26 million, Hollywood-style
15:52 Building something for himself (Evernote)
18:19 Startup failure is brutal; startup success is much worse & much harder
20:57 Three types of regret
22:48 Maintaining his principles & ethics
24:53 Metrics used to measure impact
26:30 3-year game plan for mmhmm
28:13 How mmhmm improves lives
31:07 Why Phil hates the metaverse
32:27 Crypto blockchain is bullsh*t
33:45 The promise of blockchain is just communist propaganda?
37:14 Training himself to like what he hates, including durians!
39:57 How listeners can help Phil Libin


📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/87

🙊 Like STIMY? Buy us a ☕️?: https://beacons.ai/sothisismywhy

💌 Get the latest STIMY alpha/exclusive updates: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605

STIMY 87 features Phil Libin. Some things he’s most known for:
Co-founder and CEO of Evernote, which he grew to become a beloved product for hundreds of millions of users
Managing Director at General Catalyst
Co-founder and CEO of All Turtles, a globally distributed product studio
Co-founder of mmhmm, an all-in-one platform for making, watching, and talking on videos

This is an episode that’s all about startups, growth, regret and why Phil hates the metaverse & thinks blockchain is bullshit and “communist propaganda”.

Here’s a little background:
Phil Libin was 8 years old when he moved from Leningrad (now St Petersburg) to Parkchester, New York as a refugee. His parents were both classical musicians and he lived in a fairly dangerous neighbourhood in the Bronx.

Despite being a self-described “punchable” kid (he was poor, very physically uncoordinated and didn’t speak English well), he did well in school, earned good money doing repair work and freelance programming and sold his first company, Perseus Data systems, for $500.

But at the same time, he also got fired from his job selling ice-cream and took 30 years to get his Bachelors degree!

Why?

How?

What?

Here are the highlights:
3:43 Moving to New York as Russian immigrants
4:52 Being fired from his job selling ice-cream
6:11 Taking 30 years to complete his degree?!
8:15 Working with essentially the same core group of friends to build 5 startups
11:13 Selling Engine5 for $26 million, Hollywood-style
15:52 Building something for himself (Evernote)
18:19 Startup failure is brutal; startup success is much worse & much harder
20:57 Three types of regret
22:48 Maintaining his principles & ethics
24:53 Metrics used to measure impact
26:30 3-year game plan for mmhmm
28:13 How mmhmm improves lives
31:07 Why Phil hates the metaverse
32:27 Crypto blockchain is bullsh*t
33:45 The promise of blockchain is just communist propaganda?
37:14 Training himself to like what he hates, including durians!
39:57 How listeners can help Phil Libin


📍Show notes: www.sothisismywhy.com/87

🙊 Like STIMY? Buy us a ☕️?: https://beacons.ai/sothisismywhy

💌 Get the latest STIMY alpha/exclusive updates: https://sothisismywhy.ck.page/ebf231f605

43 min