One thing I'm always on the lookout for with people. Are they moving quickly? Are they evolving quickly? In my view, at the end of the day, when you're betting on a founder, especially if the market's not super clear, what you're trying to do is, you're trying to predict that, that particular person will have as many shots on goal as possible,

How does the aspiring master of private equity develop this mindset toward complexity, acceptable risk, and adequate return? It comes down to a set of characteristics that can be based on both natural aptitude and learned experience: the willingness to embrace and investigate the unknown, or even chaos—or at least the absence of identifiable order;