What We Look for in Founders

Our tagline is Founders are artists, not assets. If I had to summarize my core belief, it’s that the best founders, especially in the early days, look more like artists creating a fundamentally new, creative project. They don’t resemble business executives chasing an arbitrage opportunity.

Why do so many founders build things no one wants? Because they begin by trying to think of startup ideas. That m.o. is doubly dangerous: it doesn't merely yield few good ideas; it yields bad ideas that sound plausible enough to fool you into working on them.

This is an important point. A lot of the most successful people, not just in startups but in many fields, do what they do because there's something they want to exist, or some mystery they want solved, and no one else is working on it.

Work on hard problems, driven mainly by curiosity, but have a second self watching over your shoulder, taking note of gaps and anomalies.

Entrepreneur and venture capitalist Paul Graham on how to do great work:

"It's essential to work on something you're deeply interested in. Interest will drive you to work harder than mere diligence ever could. The three most powerful motives are curiosity, delight, and the desire to do something impressive. Sometimes they converge, and that com

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