Thread by @sajithpai

A thread for venture nerds, esp if you dig VC history.

On the 3 broad investment styles in VC - backing people, tech, markets & the personalities who embodied those styles

Arthur Rock: people
Tom Perkins / @kleinerperkins: tech / product
Don Valentine / @sequoia : markets
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Interesting to note these different investment styles were a point of debate in the 70s-80s as Don Valentine tell us
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Why does Valentine not care as much about people / team as other investors do? Well, his belief is that great people are hard to find or select. And a great and growing market can always make up for the seemingly ‘non-great’ but effective people.
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It isn't that Valentine doesn't care about the team, but rather that the market gets greater weightage.
And if you back markets over people you will get those great companies led by impossible people too; like Apple.
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But Arthur Rock got Apple too, and Intel and many others. He says - backing people / team is my strategy and my style.
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Arthur Rock: “I’m interested in the people, not the ideas so much.”
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Let us get the perspective of Tom Perkins (founder of @kleinerperkins), who holds the exact opposite view – ideas, not people.
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The broad thesis here is that a great product / product idea can meet dormant or suppressed needs and create a massive market.

As @Jason Calacanis puts it in this podcast w @ShaneAParrish of @farnamstreet
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I dont think a market-first investor ignores the product or team, or vice versa. It is to do with emphasis. But the emphasis matters, in the evaluation, in the pick & how you build out the portfolio.
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More on the above in my piece where I detail these out, & a look at my own style:)

(Sources for the pics and screenshots are in the article)

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