I’ve wondered before about the cause of founder/CEO outperformance. While it wasn’t always believed, there has been more research and more vocal advocacy over the last decade that the best CEO of a startup is the founder. Some assert the best CEO of any company is the founder. And there are lots of convincing arguments […]
Read the postHow should a lead investor in a seed round get paid for their role? In public markets, a high-profile investor will get the benefit of a better price for seeing and sharing an opportunity. In pre-seed private company investment, investors that go first will usually have a lower price. At Series A stage, a high-profile […]
Read the postWhat makes someone an effective entrepreneur? How do they get that way? This question drives at what many founders, VCs and business writers spend their careers working to figure out. Yet what does the research say? Is entrepreneurship a skill, a personality type, or pure luck? Can entrepreneurship be taught? If so, can people get […]
Read the postWhat’s your approach to questions like: Was the decision to allocate capital to privates a good one? Did we select good managers? Within our private investments, did we make good allocations? As Cambridge Associates says: “[there is no] single “right” measure for private investment performance”. I have #AFewQuestionsAbout venture capital returns and performance measurement. Do […]
Read the postAdapted from a TweetStorm. An “index of Fortune 500 companies in which the founder is still deeply involved performed 3.1 times better than the rest over the past 15 years” from Bain & Company Do founder CEOs outperform because they have: – Owner’s mindset – Unique, spiky feature, or capability that gives a business special […]
Read the postPuzzling over a paradox. Riddle me this one – how can both these things be true? The number of seed rounds is the lowest in years and There are more seed-stage VC funds than ever. 2. So, I have a few questions about the Seed-stage VC Investing Market. And yes, I have read the excellent […]
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