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She and the majority of investors that write about founders have the "company purpose" thing backwards. Almost all the CEO/Founders that speak of deep purpose

She and the majority of investors that write about founders have the "company purpose" thing backwards. Almost all the CEO/Founders that speak of deep purpose have arrived via a strong path of revisionist history. I'm the founder of two large tech companies and the way that it goes is that most founders have an idea that is driven by some vague desire to solve something or test something. What ends up happening is that as the idea grows you are forced to recruit people and money. As you are forced to tell the story of your company, you workshop the emotional parts to become more effective in resonating with your audience. By the time you are raising even an "A round" your story is extremely polished and emotionally moving. I must add this is almost never done with manipulative intent or dishonesty. The mere act of becoming an orbit as the company grows demands persuasion at ever level. The story of purpose is heightened by the success, it does not create it.

thiswonthurt 9y ago
for smaller companies, this also happens in the sales process when customers want to know the history of your company. emotional embellishments happen.
askafriend 9y ago
I think you nailed it, and that's why vantage points matter. Sitting from a VC's vantage point, it seems like every successful founder who comes through the door to pitch you has a deep sense of purpose. The reality is that by the time a founder has even entered the door of a VC, the persuasion is perfected to an incredibly obsessive level by necessity and through trial and error. It's to a point where even the founder starts seeing their own revisionist history as actual history...because there's really no other option. There's nothing wrong with this - it's extremely rational and a normal consequence of the environment. When you pitch that often and craft your story that often of course you will buy into it more and more over time regardless of the extent to which you bought into it initially. It's really the attempt to understand this phenomenon from the wrong vantage point that is flawed - as you pointed out.
- isoskeles 9y ago
  > There's nothing wrong with this - it's extremely rational and a normal consequence of the environment. Then perhaps there's something wrong with the environment.
  - askafriend 9y ago
    Perhaps...but whether there is or isn't a problem with the environment, that's a different discussion entirely.
  - jpttsn 9y ago
    Or with your expectations. Or both.
  - bksenior 9y ago
    Not really, you are a Pavlovian animal in every aspect of your life. Everyone is. That fact is not mutually exclusive to having integrity or living a thoughtful life though.
- zodiac 9y ago
  You might be right, but Jessica isn't funding "traditional" VC amounts but much earlier than that.
  - samnwa 9y ago
    He is right. 100% accurate. People (VCs included) have large incentives to pretend to have passion for purpose.
    - nostrademons 9y ago
      It gets to the point where it ceases to be "pretending". It may start out as a technique to get others to buy into your little experiment [1], but if you practice your pitch enough that it resonates emotionally with other people, and you practice your delivery enough that it sounds authentic, then eventually you will end up actually having passion for the product. Cognitive dissonance won't let you do otherwise; it's very hard to pretend to hold an emotion, over and over again, without actually holding that emotion. Brand loyalty, religion, patriotism, hiring/onboarding, romantic relationships, and therapy are all other systems that work according to this principle. So is the expression "fake it till you make it" - at some point, you cease to be faking it. [1] "Vision" is another term that's like this. Most (successful) entrepreneurs don't start their companies with a grand vision of what they want to accomplish. Rather, they start with a tiny need that tickles them. And then as they continue working on it, the need gets more distinct, they need to enlist more people to help, and eventually this tiny feeling gets massaged into a very big, very concrete vision that's effective at getting people to buy in.
justonepost 9y ago
Disagree. I think the business teaches you about your idea. What you call work shopping is really letting the practical reality of your idea consume you. It takes true devotion to subsume your personal soul for your idea. I think she's prepping her audience for this process. Make sure you pick an idea you will give everything to. And I mean everything..
- arximboldi 9y ago
  So you're saying the only difference between a start-up founder and a jihadist are the weapons they use...
owebmaster 9y ago
> I must add this is almost never done with manipulative intent or dishonesty. You described a terrible behavior with nefast consequencies, most of the times. Plain old Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field.
clairity 9y ago
i'm not sure how you concluded that jessica got it backwards. i was at the conference and she did in fact make a point of saying that purpose evolves over time and that many investors often wrongly look for it in early stage founders as a quality signal before it's been arrived at. it seems you agree with her. to be fair, she may have mentioned that in a different part of the conference so it's not explicitly spelled out in the post, which was her opening keynote.

thiswonthurt 9y ago

for smaller companies, this also happens in the sales process when customers want to know the history of your company. emotional embellishments happen.

askafriend 9y ago

I think you nailed it, and that's why vantage points matter. Sitting from a VC's vantage point, it seems like every successful founder who comes through the door to pitch you has a deep sense of purpose. The reality is that by the time a founder has even entered the door of a VC, the persuasion is perfected to an incredibly obsessive level by necessity and through trial and error. It's to a point where even the founder starts seeing their own revisionist history as actual history...because there's really no other option. There's nothing wrong with this - it's extremely rational and a normal consequence of the environment. When you pitch that often and craft your story that often of course you will buy into it more and more over time regardless of the extent to which you bought into it initially. It's really the attempt to understand this phenomenon from the wrong vantage point that is flawed - as you pointed out.

isoskeles 9y ago
> There's nothing wrong with this - it's extremely rational and a normal consequence of the environment. Then perhaps there's something wrong with the environment.
- askafriend 9y ago
  Perhaps...but whether there is or isn't a problem with the environment, that's a different discussion entirely.
- jpttsn 9y ago
  Or with your expectations. Or both.
- bksenior 9y ago
  Not really, you are a Pavlovian animal in every aspect of your life. Everyone is. That fact is not mutually exclusive to having integrity or living a thoughtful life though.
zodiac 9y ago
You might be right, but Jessica isn't funding "traditional" VC amounts but much earlier than that.
- samnwa 9y ago
  He is right. 100% accurate. People (VCs included) have large incentives to pretend to have passion for purpose.
  - nostrademons 9y ago
    It gets to the point where it ceases to be "pretending". It may start out as a technique to get others to buy into your little experiment [1], but if you practice your pitch enough that it resonates emotionally with other people, and you practice your delivery enough that it sounds authentic, then eventually you will end up actually having passion for the product. Cognitive dissonance won't let you do otherwise; it's very hard to pretend to hold an emotion, over and over again, without actually holding that emotion. Brand loyalty, religion, patriotism, hiring/onboarding, romantic relationships, and therapy are all other systems that work according to this principle. So is the expression "fake it till you make it" - at some point, you cease to be faking it. [1] "Vision" is another term that's like this. Most (successful) entrepreneurs don't start their companies with a grand vision of what they want to accomplish. Rather, they start with a tiny need that tickles them. And then as they continue working on it, the need gets more distinct, they need to enlist more people to help, and eventually this tiny feeling gets massaged into a very big, very concrete vision that's effective at getting people to buy in.

justonepost 9y ago

Disagree. I think the business teaches you about your idea. What you call work shopping is really letting the practical reality of your idea consume you. It takes true devotion to subsume your personal soul for your idea. I think she's prepping her audience for this process. Make sure you pick an idea you will give everything to. And I mean everything..

arximboldi 9y ago
So you're saying the only difference between a start-up founder and a jihadist are the weapons they use...

owebmaster 9y ago

> I must add this is almost never done with manipulative intent or dishonesty. You described a terrible behavior with nefast consequencies, most of the times. Plain old Steve Jobs' Reality Distortion Field.

clairity 9y ago

i'm not sure how you concluded that jessica got it backwards. i was at the conference and she did in fact make a point of saying that purpose evolves over time and that many investors often wrongly look for it in early stage founders as a quality signal before it's been arrived at. it seems you agree with her. to be fair, she may have mentioned that in a different part of the conference so it's not explicitly spelled out in the post, which was her opening keynote.