Pioneer's Daniel Gross: “Everything big starts small”

The Times Tech Podcast

Will Morley

Business, Unknown, Technology

4.9 • 654 Ratings

🗓️ 14 December 2018

⏱️ 49 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

The Sunday Times’s tech correspondent Danny Fortson brings on Daniel Gross, founder of Pioneer, to talk about growing up as an Orthodox Jew in Jerusalem (2:40), applying to Y Combinator (3:40), escaping Army duty (5:40), having his first startup crash right before Demo Day (7:10), building a new product in 48 hours (8:55), selling to Apple (10:20), finding the next generation of geniuses (11:15), creating a “digital Ivy League” (13:10), using a leaderboard (14:55), how he gets the word out (16:25), the gamification of finding genius (20:00), why money is not the most important factor (23:10), how to win the Pioneer game (23:55), the importance of accountability (27:30), why he brings people to Silicon Valley (29:00), addressing the tech industry’s “sameness” problem (31:50), using video game mechanics to aid productivity (38:40), fighting the dumbing down of tech (42:40), and the intimidating “bigness” of big ideas (45:40).

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Transcript

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0:00.0	Yeah, technology.
0:03.0	What is it all about?
0:04.5	We'd obviously have to prove the model works.
0:06.1	We'd have to prove that we're producing interesting people.
0:07.9	But if we do, I mean, I think this will fix global wealth inequality.
0:11.4	Because we'll have a way to find smart, ambitious, creative people at scale.
0:18.2	Hello and welcome to Danny in the Valley, your weekly dispatch from behind the scenes and
0:22.7	inside the minds from the top people in tech.
0:25.7	This week, as with every week, I hope you'll agree.
0:29.8	We have a very interesting and engaging guest.
0:33.6	Daniel Gross, the founder of Pioneer, which is a new type of accelerator slash fund slash
0:41.0	startup video game, is here.
0:44.6	And if that sounds weird, it's because it is.
0:47.9	But basically what Gross is doing is trying to install video game dynamics, like creating
0:53.4	a startup kind of ideas tournament with
0:56.8	leaderboards and funding for the winner, to ferret out the very best ideas, the very best people
1:02.5	in the world, and then help them bring whatever it is that they're working on to fruition.
1:09.0	So in other words, he's trying to, for lack of a better word, systematize
1:13.5	a way to discover the hidden Einstein's and Picasso's, wherever they may be in whatever field,
1:20.8	they may be working in. And if you still don't get it, don't worry. Because you have about
1:26.1	45 minutes to hear it straight from Daniel,
1:29.2	who is full of youthful exuberance, which is probably helped by the very large Starbucks
	...

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