Category: People

Transactional Angst

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I think nary a week goes by where someone doesn’t ask me how VC is going and when am I going back. I guess back means to return to building something, joining a company or working on a product.

It’s normally something that requires a longer answer but usually I say ask me in 10 years. That’s cause it will probably take me that long to see if I am any good at this VC thing. 

That being said I think people ask this due to the very nature of VC being somewhat transactional and maybe building something is more of a co-op approach since there are teams involved all working together to ship. It is a sentiment I think about a lot.

Saw this tweet the other day and was thinking about it even more:

https://twitter.com/joshelman/status/1109497183445803008

However I always consider that there may be a better way but I am not saying I discovered it but highlighting that each and every craftsman in the world can approach their craft with a new frame of mind. With VC I think about what that means often. 

Let me run down a few areas I think as a VC I can be more like the product person still living inside me:

  • Be open and transparent. Of course not everyone reacts well to this but I find a certain amount of it works
  • Be humble 
  • Be helpful
  • Have empathy for the founder and the other people/organizations in the mix
  • Try to write often enough so people can see what’s on my mind and how I feel about something
  • Continue to focus on doing the right thing – it may not payoff immediately but I believe it will win in the end
  • Learn to listen more – speak less. I am terrible at this but I am very conscious of improving it. That’s a start right? 😉
  • Foster an ecosystem since everyone will benefit (https://alpha.seedplus.com)
  • Be company friendly. This is a long one to explain but I think the right folks now what I mean

I don’t intend to go back as some people call it since I think I moved forward while still getting better at my craft. I see my craft as helping build great companies by being their investor and whatever else they need me to be while I am in that role. 

Pretty sure that is similar to what I did as a product person but I am not an employee or a founder.

However the North Star feels similar to me.

Your mileage may vary.

Emilia Clarke, of “Game of Thrones,” on Surviving Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms | The New Yorker

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

Wow. Had no idea.

Great to see the charity work she is doing as well.

My family lost my brother to a stroke and what was likely some sort of Aneurysm that he didn’t recover from.

I think about it a lot and continually miss my brother.

All of this was quite a shock for me and renewed my efforts to get in the gym and clash with the iron.

Emilia Clarke, of “Game of Thrones,” on Surviving Two Life-Threatening Aneurysms | The New Yorker

‘The secret sauce is in making things simpler’ – The Hindu BusinessLine

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I had the pleasure of working with Bryan at Yahoo – awesome guy and such a great mentor.

Interesting article about Adobe and India.

‘The secret sauce is in making things simpler’ – The Hindu BusinessLine

Side note – many people may not know but in the while Koprol story – Bryan was the one in Sunnyvale helping us get through it all.

In case anyone wants to dig into that :: https://seedvc.blog/2014/02/28/koprol-the-inside-story-part-1/

Pro Rata – March 5, 2019 – Axios

~ michael_msft ~ Leave a comment

I listened to the while podcast and there were so many just weird moments.

HIs comparisons to slavery – yeah right.

And no matter what he says about stuff – his arrogance is amazing.

I am with Dan here – this dude is kind of full of himself.

No not kind of – is. What’s funny is he thinks we all care.

Pro Rata – March 5, 2019 – Axios:

😲😲 Venture capitalist Chamath Palihapitiya this week continued his reputational rehabilitation campaign, in the wake of rapidly tearing down the private investment firm he had founded (and, in the process, converting it into something more akin to a family office).

From a new Recode podcast:

“We’ve taken a couple billion dollars in and we’ve compounded that money at between 30 and 40 percent a year. So to all the people that worked for me and whose money I took, you’re fucking welcome.”

(Didn’t those colleagues help you raise and invest that money? If so, shouldn’t you actually be thanking them?)

“We did the job we were asked to do. But just like Michael Jordan had a decision to retire and go play baseball, I chose to retire and go play baseball. Now, I may come back to basketball, but this is my decision. I am not your slave. I just want to be clear. My skin color 200 years ago may have gotten you confused, but I am not your slave.”

(Michael Jordan was the single greatest ever at what he did. Social Capital did well, but not that well. Also, Jordan was a mediocre baseball player. Is that the comp for the holding company? Finally, Jordan didn’t give the rhetorical middle finger to Scottie Pippen and his other teammates after their run was over. As for making this about racism… Seriously?)