The Venture Mindset

How to Make Smarter Bets and Achieve Extraordinary Growth

By: Ilya Strebulaev, Alex Dang

Narrated by: Will Damron

Inspired by venture capitalists’ unique mindset, this is a transformative playbook for delivering extraordinary results in modern organizations, from a Stanford professor and a technology executive.

Behind life changing companies like Amazon, Google, Moderna, SpaceX, and Zoom are Venture Capital investors. VCs are known for their extraordinary ability to spot emerging trends, identify disruptive startups, attract talent, and bring new industries into being.

Ilya Strebulaev has spent the last two decades at Stanford studying VCs’ counterintuitive approaches to decision-making, and the reasons behind the success and failure of corporate innovation efforts. Alex Dang, a senior leader at McKinsey and Amazon, has seen up close the impact VCs’ thinking and mechanisms can have on a business’ success. Together in The Venture Mindset, they present nine distinct principles that can help anyone looking to transform their business and achieve extraordinary results, no matter the industry.

The Venture Mindset is a new mental model where failure is a must, ideas are rejected in their myriads in search of a single winner, due diligence is put on its head, dissent is encouraged, plugs are pulled, and time horizons are extended. It is fundamentally different from the mindset found throughout the rest of the business world. This mindset helps leaders to develop a strong pipeline of ideas, make smarter, quicker decisions, and deliver more value at scale. It’s a must hear for any leader looking to stave off irrelevance and win big in the uncertain world of business today.

*Includes a downloadable PDF of charts and graphics from the book

PLEASE NOTE: When you purchase this title, the accompanying PDF will be available in your Audible Library along with the audio.

©2024 Ilya Strebulaev and Alexey Dang (P)2024 Penguin Audio

Critic reviews

“The Venture Mindset distills how we—as corporations and individuals—can apply tenets from venture capital to our own lives, transforming traditional organizations into hubs for innovation. The book is full of powerful, practical lessons on changing how we think and act. The authors share many of the lessons I learned the hard way over decades in technology. I found this a digestible, propulsive, and insightful read for those within and beyond the walls of Silicon Valley.”—Eric Schmidt, former CEO and Chairman of Google

“Reserve a spot for this book next to Built to Last. Together they provide a powerful guide for a new generation of leaders.”—Jerry Porras, co-author of bestseller Built to Last

“A compelling playbook for founders of startups and executives seeking to infuse large corporations with the venture mindset. Crisp, practical, and laden with rich examples.”—Hayagreeva Rao, Professor at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Wall Street Journal bestselling author of Scaling Up Excellence

Great audio book

I really enjoyed this audio book. Many great insights, well written, and with a good narrator. If you are interested in VC, or more broadly in investing in innovation, this a top choice.

Gushing

Gushing with juicy information & tactics for start up companies. Will re listen it was that good

Mediocre business book

Mostly a compilation of well-known business related stories tied together in a loose framework.
Seems a bit like an advertisement for the authors consulting business.
May have been better as a printed book book if the charts and graphics were more visible. To be fair, I did not check out the PDF that goes along with the audible book.

Need to take risk and how to manage it via a portfolio approach.

Good read, with nothing new. But it provides examples of how VC manage risks, make decisions, on new companies funding that have a new type of disruptive business model.

It’s a culture book

Teaches you how to 1. Create a venture culture within your org, 2. Have an entrepreneurial mindset.