Parker Conrad's Opinion on Founder Mode, Fundraising, and VC Advice
EP 117 of The Logan Bartlett Show: Untold stories from tech's inner circle
Parker Conrad has spent the last eight years building Rippling into a $13B company, marking his redemption after being ousted from Zenefits. In his second appearance on the podcast, Parker and I discussed Paul Graham's "founder mode" essay and how he operationalizes it at Rippling. He also reflected on the key lessons he's learned throughout his career, highlighting the differences in how he ran Zenefits compared to Rippling today. Additionally, Parker shared his candid views on the challenges of having investors as board members and why he believes much of VC "value add" is overrated.
Click here to view the episode transcript | Watch on Youtube | Listen on Spotify or Apple Podcasts
✉️ Episode Memo
→ Focus on what you hate fixing
Many people advise focusing on what you enjoy and excel at while delegating tasks you dislike. However, Parker believes this approach is completely wrong. He suggests finding what you really hate doing in the company and leaning into it. The things you're avoiding are likely the biggest risks to the business, and they are probably the things only you can fix.
→ Go broad, not narrow
Parker Conrad challenges the conventional wisdom of starting with a small, narrow product and expanding later. Instead, he believes in building a broader product suite from the outset (a compound startup), which better meets customer needs and is more competitive when selling. Although this approach requires more time and a larger team, the few immense advantages of creating comprehensive software outweigh the benefits of narrower, focused products. If done right, broad focus can lead to becoming THE dominant company capable of doing everything in the space.
→ Learning from failure vs success
You learn a lot by just doing any job, but Parker Conrad believes you learn more from success than failure because companies can fail for many reasons, making it hard to know what went wrong. Success, on the other hand, requires getting many things right, offering clearer insights. There’s more value in working at successful companies, as it adds credibility to your experience, whereas holding a high title at a failed company can actually hurt your reputation.
More insights in the full episode.
⭐ Trailer
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