My younger self would tell me
That's the thought that was going through my mind when I got asked to speak here. What would I say to my past self? What would have been useful knowledge when I was your age? This is a particularly pertinent time for me to be thinking about this given I'm just about to turn 30.
I'm Alex, I'm founder and CEO of a company called Clearbit. We're about ~100ish in terms of headcount, five years in, and last valued at $250m. Unlike you, I never had a college experience, I dropped out of high-school at the age of 17.
Ten years is a huge amount of time. To put it in perspective, think about the difference between you as an 11yr old, and you as a 21yr old. It's a massive difference and you have little way of predicting what will happen.
Over the last decade, I've experienced a huge amount of personal growth. Most of the advice I have is related to that. You might ask yourself why I'm talking about personal growth to a group of people interested in entrepreneurship:
Now, to be really honest with you, I'm not sure how useful this talk will be. I think about giving my younger self this speech and I'm not sure it would have sunk in... it might have to have been lived to be learned. Regardless, here goes:
