You're The Only Investment That Matters
Today's post will be brief. I'm working on a lot of things that I'm really excited about around the storytelling of investing and decision-making in venture. Stay tuned!
Side note. I googled "shaking hands with yourself" as it felt relevant to this post and I thought I could find a nice header image. But the first result sent me down a real rabbit hole back to when the internet was mostly HTML and fun. This picture is of Megan who "excitedly shakes her own hand." Exploring what the heck is going on with Megan I found the "Dragon's Letterboxes" and was tossed into an explosion of Wisconsin-based late-2000s internet nerd-isms.
I digress.
As I sat down to write this week I went through a lot of topics (and even some half-finished posts) about my own personal values as an investor. I kept coming back to this idea of "ultimate ICs." The idea that the only real investment committee view that matters will be the one you take on yourself when you look back over your life and career and whether you made investments you're proud of.
And I don't just mean whether the companies you invested in were bangers. But when you look back on the time, money, influence, and power you had—did you invest it wisely?
One of the negative aspects of the increased buzziness and meme-ification of venture is that more and more emphasis is put on what other people are doing. Or within larger firms they've grown past the cottage vibes of small partnerships but they're still dictated by the small internal politics of "what do my partners think of me?"
Those are realities that you have to deal with if you're working for anyone else. You have to answer to them for your outcomes. If you don't like that you should only invest with your own money. But for the vast majority of people they answer to someone, whether its other partners, LPs, founders, and otherwise.
Instead of casting off the expectations of others just focus on aligning what you want to accomplish with what the people you answer to want to accomplish. And if those values aren't aligned? That's okay. It doesn't mean you suck or they suck, its just a question of alignment.
Charlie Munger had three rules for a successful career:
Don't sell anything you wouldn't buy yourself
Don't work for anyone you don't respect and admire
Work only with people you enjoy
If you find yourself pushing a founder to take your money but in the back of your mind you probably wouldn't take your firms money if you were a founder? You're selling something you wouldn't buy.
If you find yourself pushing for investments not because you believe in them but because your partner does? You're working for someone you don't respect.
If you find yourself actively avoiding collaborating with the people you work with or politicking to make sure you get as much credit as possible since the people you work with are clearly undeserving of any credit? You're working with people you don't enjoy.
At the end of the day (like, not just the end of Thursday but the 'end of days') the only evaluation that is going to matter is your own. So don't spend your time pushing for things you don't care about. Imagine the world you want to exist and then work to make that world more realistic. Invest in the companies that help along that path. Engage in the causes that help along that path. And build the relationships that help along that path.