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1/ Notes on lot of intelligent stuff. Source -> Josh Wolfe - Lux Capital #thread
2/ Best way to predict the future is invent it.
3/ Always ask Does it Work. Investors just don’t ask this simple question.
4/ Human nature doesn’t change. Tech and everything else changes. Successful investors are very good psychologists. People and psychology are important.
5/ People who are inventing the future are asymmetrically distributed. VC is about finding this. Lux capital’s investments are contrarian initially but want people to agree later.
6/ The pampers effect - I am wetting myself to join this person. That kind of pattern of great storytelling ability is what makes great people and entrepreneurs. These are people who are influential.
7/ Control Freaks are almost always a negative sign because they don’t trust or are trying to hide something. Best operators have had children. Kids teach you patience because this can’t be learned by reading Kahneman. Operators need to have patience.
8/ Kids embarrass you in public and it works. Such a powerful thing and brilliant way to test patience
9/ There is a lot of luck in the world - be mindful of that. How to differentiate luck from skill? Answer - can you fail on purpose? Example pick the worst stock and what if it still does well. There is luck there.
10/ 100-0-100 phenomenon. I am a hundred percent certain that lux will invest in cutting edge companies. Zero percent certainty what they will be. 100% certain about where I will find them.
11/ Crypto is not interesting today because it is interesting to everyone. No one was talking about solar and nuclear when everyone was talking about other clean energy.
12/ Turn your attention to the question ‘what sucks?’ And you’ll see future being created there.
13/ What is no one talking about today? Directional arrows of progress. When you discover this universal principle or a trend, or trends, you see magic. Valuable companies get formed there. People are not paying attention to the half life of computer intimacy - how...
14/ ...we interact with computers is changing.
15/ Advanced technology is like magic and that is how future might be. Technology might be invisible.
16/ Nature evolved things in a biological way but they were mathematical. That’s how computers will design stuff - organic, wavy, but mathematically precise - biologically optimal. Imagine that future office buildings will be designed by computers but in a biological...
17/ ...way.
18/ Tribal Leadership - good book to think information flow.
19/ Failure comes from a failure to imagine failure - so powerful in my opinion.
20/ Give attention to kids - positive attention is so possible. If they’re being difficult they want attention. Allocate attention and be fully engaged with them. That’s a lesson in good parenting.
21/ Better to have stuff than need it later.
22/ So important to find the balance between fitting in and standing out.
23/ How lux makes certain investment decisions? Example - there’s a potential deal, Lux folks ask all possible questions, put forward concerns and the the person who has introduced the deal can then prime the entrepreneur that you should be be prepared to answer...
24/ ...these questions. More meaningful discussions with a prepared entrepreneur.
25/ Process of recording opinions, judgments, observations, and conclusions is super important in a system. People have selective memory and the above process helps make nuanced decision making and helps ask the best questions. Figure out WHAT IS KNOWABLE.
26/ What’s not is not - no way to know that will dog eat the dog food? 🙃
27/ Great virtue in VC is that you can fund milestones. Best performing companies may not have comps.
28/ More irrational actors than ever before in business because there’s so much more money.
29/ Bill Gates - takes copious amounts of notes in meetings. He finds normative things and the objective truth with situations and that’s how you probably win arguments.
30/ Have a hall of heroes whose decisions you like and think how they make decisions.
