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Quote: "Being a VC is fing hard". But what he won't tell you is much much harder to be a founder/engineer who actually does stuff. It's not clear how differen

Quote: "Being a VC is fing hard". But what he won't tell you is much much harder to be a founder/engineer who actually does stuff. It's not clear how different this is from say hedge fund? I would imagine it's the same set of people who just found a nice, easy alternative?

nmfisher 6y ago
> But what he won't tell you is much much harder to be a founder/engineer who actually does stuff. No idea how hard VCs work, but I suspect this isn't a fair comment. Sounds strikingly similar to engineers' opinions of salespeople - "their job isn't so hard, my job is much harder because I actually have to build something". To me, dealing with people is a lot more difficult than dealing with machines. I think I would bomb spectacularly if my job was mostly wining, dining and cajoling investors.
clairity 6y ago
being a VC is hard, but the surprising part is how and where. it's not in picking investments, as we might imagine at first blush, but in constantly securing funding, accessing good deal flow, building relationships, making connections/deals (partners, companies, customers, employees, etc.), gathering (private) information, etc. once you do all that hard stuff, picking the investments is relatively easy, and mostly a numbers game, because any (large enough, ~60+) portfolio of not-unviable investments will perform reasonably, assuming you do, and keep doing, all the hard things noted above. it's mostly tending to people and being proximate to both talent and wealth. only a small slice of the job is picking investments.
jasode 6y ago
>It's not clear how different this is from say hedge fund? I would imagine it's the same set of people Although a hedge fund and a venture capital fund look superficially the same, they attract very different types of people because they specialize in different aspects of finance. I wrote a previous comment on this.[0] Many folks who start hedge funds or join hedge funds come from traditional banking sectors like ex-Goldman Sachs, ex-Citi, ex-MorganStanley, etc. Their mental model is arbitrage and finding inefficiencies in financial markets. In contrast, the type of people who start VC funds often come from the tech industry. E.g. ex-Intel, ex-Google, ex-Netscape etc. Their dominant perspective is growing new startups that beat the competition. E.g. The VC Marc Andreessen was not an ex-banker. He was the Netscape wunderkind programmer. Yes, sometimes some lower-level VC partners come from Wall Street (e.g. KPCB partner Mary Meeker was analyst at Morgan Stanley) but the prominent names in VC came from the technology sector. Likewise, the next generation of VCs will come from employees of today's tech unicorns. The disposition and personality of a venture capitalist is closer to an angel investor rather than a hedge fund partner. The angel is just investing his own money to grow a hot new company whereas the VC is investing others' money. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21365966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21365966
jordanpg 6y ago
I think the word "hard" is a bit overloaded in this thread. Yes, I'm sure VCs "work hard" in the sense of putting in lots of hours or doing demanding work, but really, who cares about that. Lots of people, up and down the socio-economic spectrum work hard in this sense. It's not a helpful distinction. And I'm not impressed by hard work in this sense. I have often wondered what it is, exactly, that VCs and executives and SVPs and bankers do that makes their services so valuable and so venerated. As I already mentioned, it's obviously not just because they are physically "working so hard." To me it's equally obvious that it's not because they are incredibly smart or wise. I assert with great confidence that (as a general rule) truly smart people are not wasting their time with work that is in any way associated with the movements of small green pieces of paper. I believe that what is meant by "working hard" in the context of this set is a certain willingness to make deals or sales at all costs. By wisdom is meant intuition and connections or a rolodex (ie. the ability to get certain people on the phone). But I know this for sure: something isn't hard if there aren't any real consequences for failing. And in the United States, if you are lucky enough to clear certain bars, you are exempt from failure. "Failure" and "hard" in this post means not closing a certain deal, but it doesn't mean anything like financial ruin. It means a minor roadbump, perhaps some professional embarrassment, and then onto the next money thing. This is why I think these people are so utterly unworthy of the fawning adulation paid to them by SV folks desperately wanting to be rich, suckling at the teat, fantasizing about someday standing on that shiny stage with the little yellow ball mic, arms outstretched, telling everyone about their fantastic vision in broken sentences.
- bhupy 6y ago
  > truly smart people are not wasting their time with work that is in any way associated with the movements of small green pieces of paper. What you call "movement of small green pieces of paper", others might call "resource allocation", which is a pivotal function in civilization-building.
  - jordanpg 6y ago
    I don't disagree, but I maintain that it isn't something that most of the best and brightest spend a lot of time thinking about. The fact that the acquisition of lots of money is an end in and of itself pursued by a class of skilled "elite" white collar workers (like VCs) is basically a side effect of the "resource allocation" you mention run amok coupled with faulty wiring in our monkey brains.

nmfisher 6y ago

> But what he won't tell you is much much harder to be a founder/engineer who actually does stuff. No idea how hard VCs work, but I suspect this isn't a fair comment. Sounds strikingly similar to engineers' opinions of salespeople - "their job isn't so hard, my job is much harder because I actually have to build something". To me, dealing with people is a lot more difficult than dealing with machines. I think I would bomb spectacularly if my job was mostly wining, dining and cajoling investors.

clairity 6y ago

being a VC is hard, but the surprising part is how and where. it's not in picking investments, as we might imagine at first blush, but in constantly securing funding, accessing good deal flow, building relationships, making connections/deals (partners, companies, customers, employees, etc.), gathering (private) information, etc. once you do all that hard stuff, picking the investments is relatively easy, and mostly a numbers game, because any (large enough, ~60+) portfolio of not-unviable investments will perform reasonably, assuming you do, and keep doing, all the hard things noted above. it's mostly tending to people and being proximate to both talent and wealth. only a small slice of the job is picking investments.

jasode 6y ago

>It's not clear how different this is from say hedge fund? I would imagine it's the same set of people Although a hedge fund and a venture capital fund look superficially the same, they attract very different types of people because they specialize in different aspects of finance. I wrote a previous comment on this.[0] Many folks who start hedge funds or join hedge funds come from traditional banking sectors like ex-Goldman Sachs, ex-Citi, ex-MorganStanley, etc. Their mental model is arbitrage and finding inefficiencies in financial markets. In contrast, the type of people who start VC funds often come from the tech industry. E.g. ex-Intel, ex-Google, ex-Netscape etc. Their dominant perspective is growing new startups that beat the competition. E.g. The VC Marc Andreessen was not an ex-banker. He was the Netscape wunderkind programmer. Yes, sometimes some lower-level VC partners come from Wall Street (e.g. KPCB partner Mary Meeker was analyst at Morgan Stanley) but the prominent names in VC came from the technology sector. Likewise, the next generation of VCs will come from employees of today's tech unicorns. The disposition and personality of a venture capitalist is closer to an angel investor rather than a hedge fund partner. The angel is just investing his own money to grow a hot new company whereas the VC is investing others' money. [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21365966 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=21365966

jordanpg 6y ago

I think the word "hard" is a bit overloaded in this thread. Yes, I'm sure VCs "work hard" in the sense of putting in lots of hours or doing demanding work, but really, who cares about that. Lots of people, up and down the socio-economic spectrum work hard in this sense. It's not a helpful distinction. And I'm not impressed by hard work in this sense. I have often wondered what it is, exactly, that VCs and executives and SVPs and bankers do that makes their services so valuable and so venerated. As I already mentioned, it's obviously not just because they are physically "working so hard." To me it's equally obvious that it's not because they are incredibly smart or wise. I assert with great confidence that (as a general rule) truly smart people are not wasting their time with work that is in any way associated with the movements of small green pieces of paper. I believe that what is meant by "working hard" in the context of this set is a certain willingness to make deals or sales at all costs. By wisdom is meant intuition and connections or a rolodex (ie. the ability to get certain people on the phone). But I know this for sure: something isn't hard if there aren't any real consequences for failing. And in the United States, if you are lucky enough to clear certain bars, you are exempt from failure. "Failure" and "hard" in this post means not closing a certain deal, but it doesn't mean anything like financial ruin. It means a minor roadbump, perhaps some professional embarrassment, and then onto the next money thing. This is why I think these people are so utterly unworthy of the fawning adulation paid to them by SV folks desperately wanting to be rich, suckling at the teat, fantasizing about someday standing on that shiny stage with the little yellow ball mic, arms outstretched, telling everyone about their fantastic vision in broken sentences.

bhupy 6y ago
> truly smart people are not wasting their time with work that is in any way associated with the movements of small green pieces of paper. What you call "movement of small green pieces of paper", others might call "resource allocation", which is a pivotal function in civilization-building.
- jordanpg 6y ago
  I don't disagree, but I maintain that it isn't something that most of the best and brightest spend a lot of time thinking about. The fact that the acquisition of lots of money is an end in and of itself pursued by a class of skilled "elite" white collar workers (like VCs) is basically a side effect of the "resource allocation" you mention run amok coupled with faulty wiring in our monkey brains.