Evergreen fund

“The default in Silicon Valley was that you would find a technical founder, hire a GM or CEO type, have that guy on top, eventually fire the technical founder, and eventually fire the CEO too. The investors really ran the company. That’s how venture capital worked for its first 50 years until Founders Fund came in.”

One marker that I’m seeing someone clearly is when I understand how their strengths are also their weaknesses, how their genius lives right next to their dysfunction. I know that I’m further away from clarity when I am overly excited or overly skeptical.

“What I’m there for is to have a strategy discussion with the founder — for them to be totally ruthless and put me in my place. And not in a bullshit way. At this point, I’m pretty good at spotting the delta between bravado and actual competence.”

“I do completely reactionary investments. The way to do good reactionary investments is to be open to anything and have a way of judging a company that is not based on specific expertise, like sectoral expertise.

But there’s still a taboo around venture funds going public: Valley graybeards still remember dot-com bomb Internet Capital Group listing on Nasdaq in 1999. The VC shop’s valuation ballooned to nearly $60 billion before plunging 99.5% in less than two years.

We just reinvented venture capital and obliterated the barriers to entry. Anyone can launch a VC fund in a day with no up front costs and take LP commitments as low as $10K. I am proud to introduce the Start Fund.

“I try to live my life by what I call my ‘freedom quotient’: the numerator is money and the denominator is fame,” he said. “I’m trying to maximize money and minimize fame.”