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What Some of the Biggest Names in Silicon Valley Wish They Had Known at Age 20 Some focus on the importance of building relationships and perseverance. Others offer advice for those looking to start their own companies.

By Kyle Russell •

entrepreneur daily

This story originally appeared on Business Insider

Owen Thomas, Business Insider

"What do you know now that you wish you had known at age 20?"

That's the question Benjamin Ling (who you should definitely follow on Twitter), a partner at venture capital firm Khosla Ventures, posed to to his Twitter followers two weeks ago.

Thanks to the reputation he garnered from his senior roles at Google, YouTube, and Facebook, Ling was able to get answers from a range of big names in Silicon Valley, from the CEO of Reddit to one of the founders of Sun Microsystems.

Many of the responses focus on the importance of building relationships, the importance of perseverance, and advice for those looking to start their own companies.

Ben Ling

Ben turned to Twitter to ask what people wish they had known at age 20. After getting over 200 responses, he rounded up the top 20.

Related: Why Lavish Silicon Valley Perks Can Be Bad For Workers

Ben Ling

Hunter Walk, Director of Product Management at YouTube

Ben Ling

Michael Yang, Head of Biz Dev at Pinterest

Ben Ling

Jason Goldberg, CEO of Fab

Ben Ling

Logan Green, CEO of Lyft

Ben Ling

Brian Caldwell, Partnerships for Evernote

Related: A Silicon Valley VC Says These Are The Future Technologies We Should Focus On

Ben Ling

Walter Kortschak, Senior Advisor at Summit Partners

Ben Ling

Om Malik, Founder of GigaOM

Ben Ling

Ben Smith, Founder of MerchantCircle

Ben Ling

Chris Sacca, Founder of Lowercase Capital

Ben Ling

Eric Rosser Eldon, Co-editor at TechCrunch

Ben Ling

Naval Ravikant, Founder and CEO of AngelList

Ben Ling

Mitch Colleran, Partnerships at Eventbrite

Ben Ling

Ben Ling, Partner at Khosla Ventures

Ben Ling

Keith Rabois, Partner at Khosla Ventures

Ben Ling

Yishan Wong, CEO of Reddit

Related: The Sexiest Developers Alive

Ben Ling

Tom Katis, Founder and CEO of Voxer

Ben Ling

Sam Altman, Partner at Y Combinator

Ben Ling

Matt Douglass, Co-founder of Practice Fusion

Ben Ling

Aaron Levie, Founder and CEO at Box

Ben Ling

Vinod Khosla, Founder of Sun Microsystems and Khosla Ventures

Kyle Russell is a reporter at Business Insider. He also writes and edits a blog about politics, techology, and media and serves as Technology Director for the Californians for Responsible Economic Development. He has previously worked for Caruso Affiliated in Los Angeles and BitMob (now GamesBeat) in San Francisco. He currently attends the University of California, Berkeley.

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