What role do mentors play in an entrepreneur's career, and how do you find the right guidance?

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Accepted Answer

Hi,

First, sorry for being a litle late with this, but to answer your question: I’ve never really had a single “guru.” However I've been really fortunate to have two amazing bosses, and two amazing co-founders - each of whom taught me a lot about the methology of building companies.

The first two bosses were both serial entrepreneus, and I was fortunate to be in a position to watch them closely, see how they made decisions, and when (and how) they challenged my decisions. Hugely influential to me in learning the validation hacking stuff I've used ever since, and even more influential in learning that there is no such thing as a right anser.

I've learnd even more from the people I've worked with like Reed Hastings, who pushed for rigor, clarity, and scale, and set incredibally high standards. Or Lloyd Tabb who showed me the that a great technical co-founder doesn't need to run everything.

I've been doing this for a long time so I don't have a single mentor. I've collected a lot of people I can count on to challenge my thinking, poke holes in my assumptions, and tell me the truth. I've found that the best mentors = at least for me - aren’t cheerleaders—they’re mirrors.