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A lot of young people ask me if they should move to venture and my answer is typically no* for the following reason.. It’s hard to truly understand what “excellence” means unless you’re deeply embedded and working for founders who are truly excellent. Even if you are part of the cap table and the board and spending time with founders, you don’t get same learnings as working at a company day in and day out. I wouldn’t know anything about product excellence if it were not for @deepnishar @ericwu01 @acv and others. I wouldn’t know anything about design if it were not for @kurtvarner @MicahSivitz @xiakv and others. I wouldn’t know anything about operational excellence if it were not for @rabois @danubata and others. Only because of these experiences and reading deeply, I was able to create some heuristics of what great founders and companies look like. And I have to keep updating it as I meet more and more founders and technology shifts beneath us. Those experiences also helped me earn the right to win the right to be a part of founders cap table. The other main reason to not be a junior investor is for most firms you’re just sourcing founders that match the GPs taste vs. truly thinking from first principles on what makes great founders & companies. If you really want to invest in founders, work at a great company and start by being be an angel. It’s such a fun way to learn and be part of founders journey. * The one exception to this is you’re absolutely obsessed with the craft of investing and you really cannot fathom doing any other job. If that’s your true passion then you’ll figure out a way to be a great investor regardless of anything you have done in the past.