David Cahn

Characteristics of great founders at the intersection of science and intuition. After reading Walter Isaacson’s recent biography of Elon Musk, I recently went down the rabbit hole of reading his other biographies: Steve Jobs, Benjamin Franklin, Albert Einstein and Leonardo Da Vinci.

Around the same time, I hosted a dinner specifically for “hardcore” founders, where participants shared their hard-charging ambitions, both personally and professionally. As these two themes collided in my mind, I began to reflect on the intensely humanistic elements of the founder journey, past and present, and the ways in which intuition and science intertwine.

The first parallel that struck me is how the hardcore ethos of Silicon Valley has been an essential characteristic of innovators in the past. Before Elon Musk popularized this phrase, Steve Jobs was the original “hardcore” founder, and Apple to this day carries that legacy. Ben Franklin may be the father of hardcore culture itself, with his Poor Richard’s Almanac proselytizing hard work and good character. Albert Einstein worked so hard on his theory of general relativity that by the end of this effort he was completely “kaput” and even thought he was dying. Leonardo da Vinci, despite his reputation for unfinished works, actually struggled to complete tasks because of his ruthless perfectionism, which led him to continue iterating on art pieces over decades.

As I was reflecting “backwards” on what made these legendary individuals so impactful, and “forwards,” on the trajectory of today’s founders and executives and the strategies I see them implementing, a broader framework appeared to me, formulated below. The framework explores how the hardcore ethos intersects with technology and humanities to produce visionary founders.

Let’s start with the hardcore ethos. First, we should define hardcore. My definition of hardcore is: 1) High standards, and 2) A scientific approach toward reaching those standards. Hardcore people tend to work hard because hard work is a very effective strategy for producing above-average results. But hardcore people are also efficient: they are constantly iterating on their own strategies for achieving more and more. Recognizing that there is an upper bound to how much one can work (returns are initially diminishing and eventually negative), hardcore people develop a scientific approach toward their own output, learning to maximize results.

People who combine hardcore ethos with a scientific approach to technology become phenomenal engineers. Engineering, especially at the highest levels, is all about the application of scientific principles to complex systems. Great engineers have a deep understanding of how technology works, and they learn to run their own experiments so that they can push the cutting-edge forward. There is a Pareto frontier between engineering skill and hardcore mentality. A less good engineer at Tesla can be equal in impact to a much better engineer at Google because of their hardcore ethos. Anyone can move up their own Pareto frontier by becoming more hardcore, or they can push their frontier out by becoming better technically. Silicon Valley at its best brings people together to move the collective frontier forward.

Let us turn to the second axis: intuition. We often think of intuition as being the opposite of scientific thought, and yet what stands out from the great innovators is that they are able to hold these two “opposites” in their minds simultaneously. For example, while Einstein was steeped in rigorous mathematics and contemporary breakthroughs in experimental physics, he excelled as an intuitive theorist whose thought experiments led him to discoveries. Steve Jobs grew up tinkering with electronics with his mechanic father but is best known for his exploration of Buddhism and the counterculture.

Intuition in Silicon Valley manifests as understanding what customers need or want. This is often what distinguishes good companies from the truly exceptional. Products like Notion and Snowflake are intuitive to use in ways that are difficult to explain but easy to experience. Airbnb was built on a crazy intuition and became a wonderful community. As the Silicon Valley “factory” has become more mechanized, the space available for intuition can feel like it’s shrinking. We prematurely exploit technologies before we can fully explore their capabilities . The best founders have understood the importance of cultivating and honing their own intuitions, often through trial and error. SpaceX’s many public failures have been a big contributor to its long-term success, and as of 2023, 80% of the mass carried to orbit was carried by SpaceX.

Intuition regarding humans is the domain of literature, humanities, and religion. The great innovators seem steeped in some intuitive understanding of man, each drawing on different influences: Einstein on Ernst Mach, Jobs on Buddhism, and Musk on Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy and The Culture . Science fiction, at its best, plays this dual function, exploring the intersection between technology and humanity. This is why so many world-changing innovations seem to have been anticipated by science fiction. (I was amazed by this article , which argues that Neal Stephenson foreshadowed ChatGPT in Diamond Age. ) Asimov takes this idea to an extreme: Foundation imagines a universe where human nature is so fully understood, the future of history becomes predictable.

When you combine the hardcore ethos with intuition, combustion starts to happen:

Leadership = Hardcore Ethos + Human Intuition: Those who apply intuitive thinking to the domain of human interaction become leaders. This explains why business schools like Stanford tend to filter for hardcore people in the application process and then train them to understand how humans can work together effectively. Relationship building with peers in the MBA is not just for fun—it’s the ultimate practicum course.

Builder = Hardcore Science + Product Intuition: Intuition in the domain of product is design. Designers have an intuitive grasp of how technology will be used by real people. Technological breakthroughs and their applications are often discovered separately because the former requires scientific understanding while the latter requires intuitive thinking and design sensibility. In AI, for example, our technological advancements have far outpaced design-oriented thinking, making the latter an extremely lucrative opportunity for the right entrepreneurs.

The people who build Silicon Valley every day are doers, builders, inventors and leaders. It takes mastery of only a single one of these domains to be successful. Those who master two or even three can have a tremendous impact.

The master of all four domains is the visionary. Visionaries are hardcore, they are masters of engineering, they understand people well enough to lead them and they make intuitive leaps to build spectacular products. To be a visionary is the ultimate ambition of every founder.

Visionaries who master these four domains build companies with mission and purpose. OpenAI is relentlessly building for AGI, Nubank is pursuing economic empowerment, and Stripe is increasing the GDP of the Internet. When science and intuition are leveraged to unleash human and technological potential, we get the magic of Silicon Valley.

David Cahn

Menlo Park, California, United States 7K followers 500+ connections

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Sequoia Capital

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Education

University of Pennsylvania - The Wharton School

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Menlo Park, California, United States

7K followers 500+ connections

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