He is from Switzerland, it is a different place than Silicon Valley. I would vet that almost none of the contacted guys were tech billionaires.

Business advice is a lot more broad than science/tech and can actually help and give perspective.

Just by being born swiss he got unto global 0.1%.

Always be thinking. Closing gets old.

I've known 3. They don't mentor people. They hire people that can do very well, 10-100MM, but not $1B.

2 of the 3 got lucky. They would have been very successful but they both found someone to way overpay on their exit.
The third is amazingly charismatic and sees way ahead of the rest of us.
Last point, none are looking to create more competition.

I completely agree with your points.

What you actually want to find is a partner (or ideally an entire team) with a high level of technical capability. You want to help create a low-drama, high-output group that is invested in a shared vision. This is going to do a lot more for you than 5 forced minutes with Mark Cuban.

Many successful startups were formed from a talented engineer or two, with at least someone possessing the social skills and the ability to sell, somehow acquiring the capital to work 90+ hours a week to get the company off the ground.

What you don't want is "4 bros with a dream" and no one with strong engineering skills. You need a lean team where everyone is pulling weight, and you're shipping product fast and iterating. If you're one of the people that doesn't have technical chops, you need to be doing everything else, and you need to be able to sell your ass off. If you can't cold approach someone, and you're not an engineer, you're fucked.

As for SV being Bluepill, this is by design. It is safer for PR reasons, and it is a defense against lawsuits. Discrimination is no joke in California, and the labor laws here are completely fucked and one-sided against businesses. There are a lot of RP-inclined founders in SV; we just keep quiet about it.

I'm very surprised that these people took the time to meet you

Oh yes, I honestly am surprised that the OP actually got results. Is he lying or not, nobody has any idea. But my bs detector is tingling slightly. There are only 400 billionaires in America, out of 400 million people, for example.

When you get to a certain level you realize that advice that only a specific person can give (e.g. a billionaire) is almost always too specific to be useful... at least that's what I've found.

You know, I've noticed this too.

I've actually interacted with some of these people (3 billionaires specifically, and 2 executive chairmen who don't personally have that much money but control it via their companies), and their advice comes with a few caveats:

1. They are extremely informed about whatever industry made them godly amounts of money. If you have a different opinion on this industry than them, you're going to be shown the door immediately, and dismissed. And they are usually correct. When they have an opinion about their own industries, it is backed up by hard facts nearly nobody else has (inside political information) and hard results that nearly no other human has achieved. Do not disagree with them about anything they have direct experience in. If you do, you're a fool.

2. They are so annoyingly prone to the overgeneralization fallacy. They have achieved a level of success that few other humans in history have achieved. And yet they assume that they know what led them to that success, and that these principles will apply to other industries. Now, this may be true or it may not. But several of the multi-millionaires I've interacted with, have the same critique of the billionaires we've met in common. That the billionaires don't actually understand niche industries, yet think they do.

3. They love discussing philosophy. At the highest levels of the world, the baseline amount of knowledge is pretty similar between the top people. Sure there is inside information, and their experience will differ. But they enjoy the "unknowns" of our universe way more than the people busy working their way to the top. They will engage in a hearty debate with you on philosophy. As long as there are no hard facts with which they can dismiss your opinion, they will consider it, and even enjoy discussing the state of humanity. Ironically it behooves you to be less factual with these people (you will never ever match them with knowledge so don't even try).

[deleted]

What AI startup!? Thoughts on deepmind, ( and also calico? I'm super interested about it... ).

Fuck, can you just do an AMA? It's interesting to come across an actually (assumed) high-IQ dude who's on some level of social acuity that other people aren't on. ( 1 - 2 qualities I like about you lmaooo )

This is the mentality that drags you down.

Small point of advice, if you want to appeal to the class of the high station guy, you should probably use the term "beaucoup" over "bookoo".

In order to get the most out of the mentorship, you'd have to study up on the topic during your spare time, including reading and understanding any books that they might have out.

Make a good enough impression and there's a slight chance they'll refer you to some of their business associates, which will help you further your knowledge, but the first step has to come from your end.

Thanks for your reply and concern. I know the kind of people you are talking about. Fortunately, my mentor never went to University (for which he was criticized by the media a lot) and is extremely down to earth. His net worth is around 1.5bn and he doesn't have a plane/yacht and drives a normal Audi RS4 or RS6. People can't fathom how such an 'uneducated' guy could make so much money. He always says that theory and practice are usually completely different. He feels comfortable around 'ordinary' people.

The way we interacted was that I could ask him questions and he gave me answers (which I understood - he's from a brick and mortar world, nothing extremely complicated). I also provided him with numbers of a product I was thinking about acquiring and he could give me specific advice I could understand.