That startup advice is true, but only in certain contexts — people miss that asterisk. Satya's takeaway is to take everything with a pinch of salt, lean more on his own intuition, and have the courage to trust his own judgement when no one else can see the answer.
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Satya says he's still early in his founder journey — only a few months in — and wouldn't point to one specific lesson, but something he's grown to appreciate over time. There's a lot of advice out there about startups and it's true, "but only in certain context, so people miss that asterisk." You hear "move fast and break things the Facebook way," or "build something unbreakable, which Stripe and Apple are known for" — very contrasting evidence. Persistence helped Amazon, but knowing when to pivot helped Slack, YouTube and Instagram. His conclusion: "your company doesn't succeed because you followed someone else's playbook — it succeeded or failed because you had the courage to trust your own judgement when no one else could see the answer." The real job of a founder is to listen deeply to all the advice but also think independently and bet on your own insight when it matters.