Grit | Kleiner Perkins | Make History

Grit is about being okay with suffering. We get dealt cards every day in life and I think how we react and manage those cards is really a testament to grit. In my house, we like to utter the borrowed phrase, ‘when you’re in hell, just keep going.

CCO,

Grit, to me, is being passionate, tenacious, and confident, not cocky and arrogant. It’s out-hustling your competition; it’s not taking your customer for granted; it’s, somehow, maintaining that underdog feeling. When everything’s expected—are you going to win? You’re going to win. I don’t want people to be overconfident. I want them to be paranoid. So, grittiness to me is a healthy dose of paranoia.

President Global Strategic Customers,

It’s the ability to work through the feelings of wanting to stop and every part of your body might be screaming ‘just stop here, it’s okay’ but you’re willing to work through that to get to a longer-term goal.

CRO,

It means that everything in your life is a learning experience and that if you push through and do the hard thing, you will come up so much stronger.

President & COO,

To me, grit is just continuing to show up every single day, regardless of how it is that you feel.

Co-Founder & CEO,

Determination and durability. It’s all about the fabric of how a certain person responds to adversity. I always like to hire people that have gone through a lot of adversity because that allows them to get through hard times easier because their base expectation is low.

Founder & CEO,

I think gritty people find a way to be successful. There's some people that just get by with natural talent, probably the best of the best have some natural talent, acumen, intelligence, and grit. And there's a lot of people that maybe don't have some of those things, but just with grit, they can still do a lot.

CRO,

Grit means sticking with things no matter what comes your way.

CMO,

I think to be gritty and to constantly run through new walls and make it through any scenario versus just the best times, you have to, one, run at the hard problems and see them as opportunities not to face that problem again, and create a solution versus shying away from it in fear. And I think, two, you have to be obsessed or be average.

Founder & CEO,

Grit means that you believe after twelve generations of just getting by, the next generation is going to be the one that really goes, right? Grit means that you get up every day and go, ‘you know, I don’t know how I’m going to solve this problem, but I’m going to go out, be scrappy and do it.’ Grit means that, yeah, that’s a tall hill, but it’s not taller than the strength I have to get over it.

CRO,

Grit means that there are going to be both great days and bad days, but you're going to get up, put your clothes on without anyone telling you to do it, and do your job. If you run from it when it gets tough — because it always does — I don’t think you have grit.

CRO,

Grit means persistence, resilience, and the willingness to power through hard things.

CMO,

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