Andrew: Hey there, freedom fighters. My name is Andrew Warner. I’m the founder of Mixergy, where I interview entrepreneurs about how they built their businesses for an audience of real entrepreneurs. And I always thought that once you build a successful company, things just kind of work out for you, that the world beats a path to your door to give you money, to do deals with you, to work for you, to, you know, but your product. It turns out that’s not the way it always works.
Today’s guest actually did it. He took a company public, came up with an idea, brought it to life, took it public. It actually ended up selling most recently for over $5 billion. We’re not just talking about a little like penny stock thing or anything. And still when he went out to raise money for his next idea, Ben Horowitz of Andreessen Horowitz said that it worked against him that he made it before. I thought, “Wow, that’s so interesting.” And meanwhile,...