5 ms·

Your objective is to create good teams, but the goal of Daniel Gross it to find unicorns. That's not the same thing. You could really have the worst culture and

by polote 5y ago

Your objective is to create good teams, but the goal of Daniel Gross it to find unicorns. That's not the same thing. You could really have the worst culture and the best mismatch of talent and still have a unicorn. That's the whole job of seed VC investors to be better than random at selecting people who will end up creating unicorns. So I disagree it is "trying to squeeze blood from stone"

BobbyJo 5y ago
> Your objective is to create good teams, but the goal of Daniel Gross it to find unicorns. That's fair. In the context of placing bets, the dynamic is different, but VCs have the benefit of simply not investing in follow up rounds, which is as close to 'firing' as they can get. > You could really have the worst culture and the best mismatch of talent and still have a unicorn. True. However, I'd be willing to bet there is predictive power in how horrible a company's culture is in the early stages. > That's the whole job of seed VC investors to be better than random at selecting people who will end up creating unicorns. So I disagree it is "trying to squeeze blood from stone" Of the VCs I know and have met, the successful ones don't give much (almost no) weight to personality tests, outside of more obvious 'red-flags'. The checklist I've seen is: 1) History of entrepreneurial success. This is probably the best way to get in anyone's door. 2) History of domain success. They want to see that you know what you are talking about and come with the connections necessary to make the venture successful. 3) Does the founder's approach to the problem align with the firm's. Most high-quality firms look to invest in areas where their partners have deep domain knowledge, and they look for companies who they believe are making good bets. There are very "impression" agnostic measures. I wouldn't put a lot of weight on "energy", but hey, I'm not a VC, so what do I know :P

by polote 5y ago

BobbyJo 5y ago

> Your objective is to create good teams, but the goal of Daniel Gross it to find unicorns. That's fair. In the context of placing bets, the dynamic is different, but VCs have the benefit of simply not investing in follow up rounds, which is as close to 'firing' as they can get. > You could really have the worst culture and the best mismatch of talent and still have a unicorn. True. However, I'd be willing to bet there is predictive power in how horrible a company's culture is in the early stages. > That's the whole job of seed VC investors to be better than random at selecting people who will end up creating unicorns. So I disagree it is "trying to squeeze blood from stone" Of the VCs I know and have met, the successful ones don't give much (almost no) weight to personality tests, outside of more obvious 'red-flags'. The checklist I've seen is: 1) History of entrepreneurial success. This is probably the best way to get in anyone's door. 2) History of domain success. They want to see that you know what you are talking about and come with the connections necessary to make the venture successful. 3) Does the founder's approach to the problem align with the firm's. Most high-quality firms look to invest in areas where their partners have deep domain knowledge, and they look for companies who they believe are making good bets. There are very "impression" agnostic measures. I wouldn't put a lot of weight on "energy", but hey, I'm not a VC, so what do I know :P