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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 doo

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.

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.