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>One issue to watch out for are investors who lack operating experience but believe that they are “pattern matchers”. That’s like hiring a coach who’s never pla
by mmhsieh 6y ago
>One issue to watch out for are investors who lack operating experience but believe that they are “pattern matchers”. That’s like hiring a coach who’s never played the game, but still thinks, “Hey Michael Jordan, you need to listen to my advice.” There are some really smart people who’ve been great partners to founders without having done it themselves, but that’s the exception.
Can someone expand on this point?
- gumby 6y agoLet me provide a counterpoint: true operating people rarely make good investors as they think “well I could probably work my way out of this problem” so don’t cut their losses. These folks can be good to have on your board, but can also be bad. OTOH in my experience people with no operating experience rarely have good advice (but there are significant exceptions to this too, e.g. Michael Moritz). Most likely to succeed: enough operational experience that you can pattern match accurately and insightfully. A good example of this would be John Johnson at august (maybe he’s retired by now?) who once ran a factory in Hong Kong (making clothing? I can’t remember). Nothing tech, yet an excellent tech investor (Palm, Be, Cygnus, many others) and board member.