From the Investors

Sam Altman of Y Combinator offers 36 pieces of advice he’s learned over time in “The Days Are Long But The Decades Are Short”

Rob Go of NextView Ventures provides a transparent look inside his mental map for choosing to invest or not invest in a company in “Flowchart: How a Seed VC Makes Investment Decisions”

Logan Bartlett of Battery Ventures dives into the ‘battle of upstarts vs. SaaS incumbents’ with an overview of Salesforce’s acquisition of RelateIQ and four ways to attack an ‘entrenched SaaS company’ in “Taking Shots at a SaaS King? Better Be Ready for the Frank Underwood”

Tomasz Tunguz of Redpoint Ventures reviews Concur’s twenty year history and evolution from selling CD-ROMs to being a cash flow break-even SaaS business in “A SaaS History Lesson – The First SaaS Company’s Exceptional Journey”

Jess Erickson of 500 Startups unveils 500 Startups’ newest group of 28 companies going through their Mountain View accelerator in “500 Startups Announces Batch 13 in Mountain View”

Beth Engel of Dundee Venture Capital explains why curiosity, competitiveness, and coachability are ‘three traits most successful founders have in common’ in “Qualities We Look For In Founders”

Jonathan Libov of Union Square Ventures expands on his thought that ‘on today’s internet, there is no home’ in terms of a brand’s distributed online presence in “Destination: Everywhere”

David Cummings of Atlanta Ventures describes the scenario of an angel investment and how pro-rata rights work in “Understanding Investor Pro-Rata Rights”

From the Operators

Conner Forrest of CBS Interactive details Mattermark CEO, Danielle Morrill’s journey from high school to Mattermark and highlights her hatred of boredom in “Danielle Morrill: Mattermark CEO. Early Riser. Boredom Killer.”

Brett Bivens of Visible.VC analyzes 190 editions of the Mattermark Daily (how meta!) to visualize the topics of interest that investors and operators are writing about in “What We Talk About When We Talk About Startups”

Weiting Liu of Codementor gives founders a first-hand review of his experiences going through both YC and Techstars, in hopes of helping founders choose the program that fits their goals in “Y Combinator vs. Techstars: Comparison By A Three-Time Alum”

Camille Ricketts of First Round Review shares how Sam Shillace, SVP of Engineering at Box and creator of Google Docs, introduced ‘a new system that keeps performance top of mind’ in “One Rubric Changed Box’s Engineering Performance – Here’s How”

Sean Johnson of DigIntent encourages people to ‘try new things’ and ‘explore new ideas’ with his thoughts on the ‘benefits of being curious’ in “The Day You Stop Being Curious Is The Day Your Career Dies”

CNBC goes old school with their video interview of Mark Zuckerberg in 2004 in “11 Years Ago Today, Someone Named Mark Zuckerberg Appeared On CNBC to Discuss A Social Network That Had 100,000 Users”