Paul Graham of YCombinator
There is a portion, Chaos Monkeys written by Antonio Garcia Martinez, about a problem his startup was facing. A threat from a big company (I think it is Microsoft or someone else) to an upstart like him. He goes to PG (Paul Graham) and Sam Altman of Y Combinator for help. After some rumination, PG extends his support to Antonio, by pushing back to the big company, that if they continue to do threaten, they will be banned from all the future demo days of Y Combinator. YC is such a powerful entity in Silicon Valley; the big shots might miss out the next billion dollar opportunity by antagonising YC or not being part of their demo days.
My respect for PG and Sam went through the roof after reading this. How many of the investors in any part of the world would do this kind of act? Everybody is in for the money, right? So, why to put your feet down for something that you will worth it. This is where the character and the values of the people matter.
My introduction to PG happened through a book, Founders at Work, written by his wife, Jessica Livingston. Five years since I read it, it has been a huge inspiration in understanding why people start up a venture. YC gave a how-to guide, blueprint for anything related to startup. IMO, if Charlie Munger is a saint like a figure in finance and investing, Paul Graham is an equivalent for him in Silicon Valley.
Key Lessons I have learnt from PG:
"You need three things to create a successful startup: to start with good people, to make something customers actually want, and to spend as little money as possible. Most startups that fail do it because they fail at one of these. A startup that does all three will probably succeed.". A very simple, in retrospect, a very commonsensical thing. But it is a key lesson.
Go small, to go big. Not all ideas of that type are good startup ideas, but nearly all good startup ideas are of that type. The corollary, of this, is to: initially, do things that don't scale, once you figure out then double down in automating it or hire people to do it.
Maker's Schedule & Manager's Schedule. You don't have to be either a maker or a manager in binary terms. In a day, the first half, you can be a maker (individual contributor), the second half, you need to attend meetings and take calls (manager). Being cognizant of this and planning things for a day helps me immensely.
Keep your identity footprint very small. The more labels you have for yourself, the dumber they make you. Charlie Munger also says this as, "Having extremely intense ideology cabbages up one’s mind... It’s easy to announce that you’re a loyal member and you start shouting any ideology out, what you’re doing is pounding it in, pounding it in, and you’re gradually ruining your mind"
Focus. It's better to make a few people really happy than making a lot of people semi-happy. (Its originally from PB, Paul Buchheit, the Gmail creator but I came to know it only through PG)