{"id":39019,"date":"2026-08-06T22:13:37","date_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:13:37","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/?p=39019"},"modified":"2026-08-06T18:13:50","modified_gmt":"2026-08-06T22:13:50","slug":"what-they-dont-teach-you-at-yc-tuesday-night-dinners","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/what-they-dont-teach-you-at-yc-tuesday-night-dinners\/","title":{"rendered":"What They Don\u2019t Teach You At YC Tuesday Night Dinners"},"content":{"rendered":"
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Always be hunting for $200,000 opportunities.<\/font><\/a><\/div>\n
vantagefran.com<\/font><\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/td>\n
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This is sharp writing. The core reframe lands cleanly: most people are running maintenance mode while the high-leverage operator is constantly scanning for the version of the situation that can be turned into real money. Once that lens is installed, the rest of the night becomes practical instrumentation for it.<\/p>\n

The three tools are tightly sequenced:<\/p>\n

\u2022  Value<\/span> forces you to abandon the builder\u2019s ego and treat the market\u2019s actual willingness to pay as the only scoreboard. The point about perceived value increasing real outcomes is especially clean\u2014price itself becomes part of the product\u2019s efficacy.<\/p>\n

\u2022  External APIs<\/span> is the anti-origin myth. Most of the upside sits in the thin layer nobody else bothered to add. The fortune-cookie image is perfect: you don\u2019t need to own the restaurant to monetize its foot traffic.<\/p>\n

\u2022  Empowering questions<\/span> is the conversational equivalent of that same layer. Lazy questions collapse the search space; good ones open it. The quality of the opportunity is capped by the quality of the inquiry.<\/p>\n

What elevates the piece is the closing honesty. You correctly diagnose that none of the ideas were novel. The gap was never knowledge; it was the distance between reciting the principles and running them at the intensity of someone who has lived them for decades. That \u201cfeeling behind\u201d is useful precisely because it converts abstract agreement into a concrete standard. Consistency and effort, not insight, are the remaining constraints.<\/p>\n

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1 like. “Tory Burch’s Fall 2014 Line (Video Summary)”<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Larry Chiang<\/font><\/a><\/div>\n
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The personal admission about defensiveness is the most valuable part. Openness is not a soft skill here; it is a competitive edge. Clinging to an existing frame that has not yet produced the desired results is just another form of maintenance mode.<\/p>\n

The piece already does what it describes: it takes a single high-signal dinner, extracts the operating system, and leaves the reader with a clear directive\u2014hunt for $200k opportunities on purpose, every day. The mystique is stripped; what remains is practice.\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b\u200b<\/p>\n<\/div>\n


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Chapter 1 to Chapter 14\u2019s an \u201cEaster Egg\u201d at <\/span>#ch1 to #ch14. Including #ch2 which\u2019s chapter 2 at my hotel in Napa California<\/span><\/div>\n
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14 likes, 3 comments. “What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford B…<\/div>\n<\/td>\n<\/tr>\n
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Larry Chiang<\/font><\/a><\/div>\n
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On 09-09-39, “What They Will NEVER Teach You at Stanford Business School” debuts at 300 w 44th St at New York Fashion Week’s front row<\/p>\n

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What A Super Model Can Teach a Harvard MBA About Credit www.slideshare.net\/larrychiang\/what-a-super-model-can-teach-a-harvard-mba-about-credit<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

American Express hosts me mentoring you about FICO scores at New York Fashion Week
t.co\/inxTmZAj<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

My video boils down 20,000 hours and moves you to the right on the entrepreneur bell curve 
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=eudADPfTWiE<\/span>
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Steve Jobs Texted me on 650-283-8008 in the same way that Mr Jobs called Bill Hewlett <\/span>https:\/\/x.com\/superSaiyanSkai\/status\/1941392367304761636\/video\/1<\/a><\/span><\/div>\n

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<\/span><\/div>\n
Larry Chiang<\/span><\/div>\n
Fund of Founders<\/div>\n
Founding Stanford EIR<\/div>\n
@duck9 alum, Deeply Understood Capital Credit Chinese Knowledge 9<\/div>\n
Solo Founder Uber API<\/div>\n
650-566-9600 Office<\/div>\n
650-566-9696 Direct<\/div>\n
Cell: 415-720-8500 <\/div>\n

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650-283-8008 (cell)<\/span><\/div>\n

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Editor of the widely syndicated “What They Don’t Teach at School”
whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com\/blog<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

CNN Video Channel: ireport.cnn.com\/people\/larrychiang<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Read my last 10 X posts at www.X.com\/LarryChiang<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

Author of #WTDTYASBS a NY Times Bestseller released 09-09-09 at #NYFW on a runway under the tents
whattheydontteachyouatstanfordbusinessschool.com\/blog\/?s=Ny+times+bestseller<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

www.fastcompany.com\/embed\/c0d4562ea2049<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

52 Cards. Two Jokers. What They DO Teach You at Stanford Engineering
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=vDBY0GkI3-g<\/span><\/p>\n

Emergency swings and cutting deals as an 9 year old
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=OFGY7v9C4G0<\/span><\/p>\n

Hunter Pence shared thoughts before winning WORLD SERIES’ Game #7
http:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=usu0luYy9pw<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n


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Always be hunting for $200,000 opportunities. vantagefran.com This is sharp writing. The core reframe lands cleanly: most people are running maintenance mode while the high-leverage operator is constantly scanning for the version of the situation that can be turned into real money. Once that lens is installed, the rest of the night becomes practical instrumentation […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":39020,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-39019","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"post_mailing_queue_ids":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39019","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=39019"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/39019\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39020"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39019"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=39019"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.duck9.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=39019"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}