Most VCs are terrible at investing, but it's actually really simple.

Here's a very easy principle that will make you a 10x better investor. Consider Apple's failed car project. For this to be successful it needed to:

1) Build a car,
2) Develop fully autonomous driving, AND
3) Master manufacturing to sell this at scale

All 3 of these need to come true independently for the project to be successful.

I work for a large corporate VC (a household brand name in tech)

My 3 years here have completely reshaped everything I thought I knew about why M&A happens.

A thread. Two relatively unknown reasons exist for why deals happen (or don’t):

1) do we have enough money to buy this business?

2) if we lose money after buying it, will I get fired for saying it was a bad idea?

1/ Why in God's name would you expect your investment can exit for >$200M?

A thread: 2/ The recurring joke about VCs is that they're bad investors. VCs invest at high valuations, follow trends like 13 year old girls on TikTok, and frequently don't do enough due diligence.

But is this actually true?

One of the best investments in Silicon Valley history was a total BUST.

a 🧵👇 1/ in 2010, a16z led Instagram’s seed round. a16z would invest $250K at a $2.6M post money valuation, buying ~10% of the company.