Joshua Hoffman, co-founder and CEO of industrial-chemicals maker Zymergen, underscores the value of teams over individuals, saying that no one person can hold the complexity of an entire business in their head. He also stresses the importance of cognitive diversity, adding that the tension caused by disagreements can be offset by unique strengths that others possess.

Tracy Chou, a founding advisor to Project Include, discusses how the organization launched with an open-source approach to building a community of advocates for more diversity and inclusion in tech. She lists specific ways companies can set and work toward goals, as well as track progress. An early employee of both Quora and Pinterest as a software engineer, Chou mentions the work Project Include does with startups.

Josh McFarland, partner at Greylock Partners, draws on his time as a tech entrepreneur to illustrate that there's no ideal time to start a company, nor do you need to hurry. He stresses the importance of having positive and enthusiastic people around when you decide to take the leap, and to be bold once things start falling into place and you're forced to decide whether or not to risk it all. "Everything you want is on the other side of fear," he says.

Venture capitalist Josh McFarland explains how being frugal when he was a tech-startup founder helped in the beginning, but hindered the venture once it entered the high-growth phase. He shows a somewhat tongue-in-cheek photo marking a successful round of fundraising at the time, urging aspiring entrepreneurs to celebrate the fun moments in a startup’s life because they help build culture and lore later on.

Josh McFarland of Greylock Partners reveals how a deal for Twitter to acquire his startup, TellApart, almost fell apart. All appeared to be in order from his perspective, but the social-media giant’s legal team raised some last-minute questions that seemed to put the nearly $500 million deal in jeopardy. As the acquisition went through, the CEO of Twitter at the time, Dick Costolo, texted McFarland: “Every deal dies three deaths.”

Tech startup founder and venture capitalist Josh McFarland shares inspirational words from renowned architect Daniel Burnham. "It is as hard to run a company of two people as it is to run one of 200," McFarland elaborates. "Really bring the full force of everything you have." He also warns against bringing home all the negativity that comes with startup life and dumping it on loved ones. "Help them believe why this is going to be successful," he says.

Stanford’s Tina Seelig asks Harrison Ford and Conservation International CEO M. Sanjayan the question at the heart of her bestselling book “What I Wish I Knew When I Was 20.” Ford, a member of the environmental organization since its inception, describes how he should’ve seized more opportunities in college but eventually discovered his gift. Sanjayan also talks about the importance of storytelling, especially to entrepreneurs.

Venture capitalist Eurie Kim talks about the traits needed to work at a high-growth company like Uber or Airbnb, as well as the benefits and drawbacks. Domain expertise and an ability to manage teams are necessary in this type of environment, according to Kim, a general partner at Forerunner Ventures. She describes early-stage startups as hectic places to work that are great for those hungry to seize new opportunities.

Eurie Kim of Forerunner Ventures discusses the traits needed to work at an early-stage company, the kind that her firm invests in most. They typically comprise under 20 people, are still identifying product-market fit, and thus, can be very chaotic places to work, according to Kim. She says it's vital that you be a jack-of-all-trades who is passionate about the product or idea and can thrive within a small network.

Forerunner Ventures General Partner Eurie Kim describes the skills and traits needed to be on a startup's founding team, as well as the pros and cons. You must have a unique expertise that complements the team and accept that your stake in the company is lower than that of the actual founders. You don't feel as much pressure, and yet you learn to be a founder, according to Kim. The downside is, often, much lower equity in the company.

Venture capitalist Eurie Kim lists the qualities needed to be a founder. Beyond the requisite traits - initiative, passion and thinking like an inventor - great founders must be magnetic, disciplined and truly visionary. "I am not in the business of funding good companies," says Kim, a general partner at Forerunner Ventures. "Venture capital is only successful on outliers." She says the drawbacks of being a founder include extreme pressure and loneliness.

SendGrid CEO Sameer Dholakia talks about how an entrepreneur's most important task at the outset, given the intensity of startups at the early stage, is to choose co-founders who share your values. He says to be equally careful when choosing investors, and to base that decision more on the strength of the relationship, less on factors like the investment firm's worth or popularity.

Samasource Founder and CEO Leila Janah describes how villagers with the wherewithal to survive on a dollar a day possess all the talent and initiative needed for digital work. She recounts how Samasource's first data-services center started as a four-station Internet cafe, and how it has since grown to a network of 2,000 full-time workers across east Africa.