What Some of the Biggest Names in Silicon Valley Wish They Had Known at Age 20

By Kyle Russell • Jul 20, 2013
Owen Thomas, Business Insider

This story originally appeared on Business Insider

“What do you know now that you wish you had known at age 20?”

That’s the question Benjamin Ling (who you should definitely follow on Twitter), a partner at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, posed to to his Twitter followers two weeks ago.

Thanks to the reputation he garnered from his senior roles at Google, YouTube, and Facebook, Ling was able to get answers from a range of big names in Silicon Valley, from the CEO of Reddit to one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

Many of the responses focus on the importance of building relationships, the importance of perseverance, and advice for those looking to start their own companies.

Ben turned to Twitter to ask what people wish they had known at age 20. After getting over 200 responses, he rounded up the top 20.

Related: Why Lavish Silicon Valley Perks Can Be Bad For Workers

Hunter Walk, Director of Product Management at YouTube

Michael Yang, Head of Biz Dev at Pinterest

Jason Goldberg, CEO of Fab

Logan Green, CEO of Lyft

Brian Caldwell, Partnerships for Evernote

Related: A Silicon Valley VC Says These Are The Future Technologies We Should Focus On

Walter Kortschak, Senior Advisor at Summit Partners

Om Malik, Founder of GigaOM

Ben Smith, Founder of MerchantCircle

Chris Sacca, Founder of Lowercase Capital

Eric Rosser Eldon, Co-editor at TechCrunch

Naval Ravikant, Founder and CEO of AngelList

Mitch Colleran, Partnerships at Eventbrite

Ben Ling, Partner at Khosla Ventures

Keith Rabois, Partner at Khosla Ventures

Yishan Wong, CEO of Reddit

Related: The Sexiest Developers Alive

Tom Katis, Founder and CEO of Voxer

Sam Altman, Partner at Y Combinator

Matt Douglass, Co-founder of Practice Fusion

Aaron Levie, Founder and CEO at Box

Vinod Khosla, Founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures

“What do you know now that you wish you had known at age 20?”

That’s the question Benjamin Ling (who you should definitely follow on Twitter), a partner at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, posed to to his Twitter followers two weeks ago.

Thanks to the reputation he garnered from his senior roles at Google, YouTube, and Facebook, Ling was able to get answers from a range of big names in Silicon Valley, from the CEO of Reddit to one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

The rest of this article is locked.

Join Entrepreneur+ today for access.

Subscribe Now

Already have an account? Sign In

Kyle Russell is a reporter at Business Insider. He also writes and edits a blog about politics, techology, and media and serves as Technology Director for the Californians for Responsible Economic Development. He has previously worked for Caruso Affiliated in Los Angeles and BitMob (now GamesBeat) in San Francisco. He currently attends the University of...

Related Content