He Helped Build a16z & Is Now Rebuilding the Government | Scott Kupor
David Senra talks with Scott Kupor, first employee at a16z, about building the firm and his move to run the federal Office of Personnel Management, where he argues bad incentives block risk-taking and talent.
The gist
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Kupor says a16z copied Michael Ovitz's CAA model, surrounding each investing partner with specialists in talent, sales and government relations instead of one connector.
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Kupor says the Skype deal, sold to Microsoft 18 months later for four times the price, returned half the first fund to investors.
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At the Office of Personnel Management, Kupor says 99.7% of federal staff rate three or above, so OPM capped top ratings at 40%.
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Only 7% of federal workers are under 30, versus 23% nationally, so Kupor's Tech Force aims to hire 1,000 technologists for two-year terms.
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Federal retirement paperwork once went to a Pennsylvania limestone mine holding 400 million pages; Kupor says it is now online and processing time dropped over 50%.
What they recommend · 1 pick
Zero to One
Books
"I found one of my all-time favorite quotes when I was reading the book Zero to One. The quote says, "The single most powerful pattern I have noticed is that successful people fi..."
Also mentioned
1:56
Costco
· "So, in the early days, it was literally like going to Costco to get and buy furniture and make sure we had..."
13:53
Skype
· "In the literally like the first couple months after we closed the first fund, we invested in Skype. And..."
16:57
RIP Good Times
· "The Sequoia guys put out this, you know, RIP presentation. Have you seen this? RIP good times, right? It's..."
36:29
TechForce
· "One of the programs we have is called TechForce, which is basically we're trying to build this elite corps...."
57:22
earlycareers.gov
· "We have a whole website, believe it or not, earlycareers.gov. That's one place they can go."
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