Weekly Investor Musings to go with your Morning Coffee
On a quarterly alchemy session with my buddy Matt (yes, we have a quarterly-ish ideation/philosophical debate session), he asked me, If you were a video game character, with both pre-set stats as well as the stat points you ve accumulated through experience to date, what s your play style? How would you best utilize your stats and Continue reading "What is your play style?" The post What is your…
Three conversations happened recently. One, an LP told me that he pit two fund managers against each other by asking their shared portfolio founder, If you could only choose one, who would you keep as an LP? Then went on to relay that answer back to both of the respective managers. The manager who lost Continue reading " Be strong enough to be gentle " The post “Be strong enough to be gentle”…
I was chatting with a friend over the weekend who made me look stupid. We were catching up after a while and we were talking about career paths and opportunities, and I had shared that I was offered to join a few large institutions late last year and earlier this year. Both of which I Continue reading "The Wrong Question for the Ambitious" The post The Wrong Question for the Ambitious first…
We’ve had a number of family offices (FOs) ask Sam and I for advice recently on investing in venture. And Sam shared a post recently on exactly that, which I highly recommend reading if you re considering investing in a fund-of-funds. This post is more of an elaboration, a continuation on his. Some of which have Continue reading "Why invest in a FoF" The post Why invest in a FoF first appeared on…
Danny Meyer wrote in his book, Setting the Table, that as Union Square Hospitality Group, which has always stayed rent-free in my my mind, they prioritize the following in the order of: And I ve always thought that was an interesting stack ranking of the stakeholders in the business. Which oddly enough, until recently, I hadn t Continue reading "Ranking the Stakeholders" The post Ranking the…
At the risk of being an iconoclast and at the risk of offending people with the below, these are the tenets of venture capital today. You have been warned. My investments will work out. They have to. Please. Everyone else is dumber than I am. My peers have died at the cross for me already. Continue reading "The Religion of Venture Capital" The post The Religion of Venture Capital first appeared on…
A conversation with an LP reminded me of this recently. Can we trust a GP s word that they re a good picker if they can t assess how likely an LP is to commit? I ve had multiple conversations with GPs where they tell me XXX and YYY are excited to come in the fund, and they just Continue reading "GP EQ" The post GP EQ first appeared on Cup of Zhou .
One of the questions that seem to come up every so often, whether it s when I m on a podcast or a fireside chat or just in conversation, is: Between sourcing, picking, and winning, which one do you think is the most important that emerging managers have? The cop-out answer is always: They need all three. Continue reading "Whac-A-Mole" The post Whac-A-Mole first appeared on Cup of Zhou .
“When small men begin to cast big shadows, it means the sun is about to set.” — Lin Yutang It s been 10 years since I first stepped into venture. Yet still, while I know more, have met more people, and have experienced more, and when I look back, I pity the knowledge and experience I Continue reading "Casting Shadows" The post Casting Shadows first appeared on Cup of Zhou .
“We’re going into a world where there will be an increase in inequality in terms of the have’s versus have-not’s. And so if you are invested in some of the have’s, I would actually bet on their acceleration of value aggregation in the later stages of scaling which is why I, personally, think a winning Continue reading "What is the Density of your Founder NPS? El Pack w/ Charlotte Zhang…