Invest Like the Best #127 Brian Singerman: Investing in the Best Founders
What are the things you look for when evaluating a business? Moat, market, execution. Is there an existing moat? Is it a large enough market? Is the team good enough to take the product from the moat they have to the large market?
I love things that aren’t easily cloned. SpaceX is an example of this.
I’m very gut-driven. For me, market analysis is purely an art.
The only way to learn about investing is investing.
Investing in VC is all about upside maximization.
I’m hesitant to talk about specific technological changes that lead to better companies because I still believe the best founders lead to the best companies.
The least important part of venture capital is how you can help the company after you make the investment because the best founders can do it themselves.
My investment decisions is all about if I think this is an A+ founder. An A+ founder knows how to own their weaknesses and knows how to account for them some other way.
Most of all I value returns. I’m not into hype. At the end of the day, there is a scoreboard. The scoreboard is not how many retweets you get. It’s your real returns.
The founding attitude of Founders Fund comes from Peter Thiel: There is not one right way. There is no one right way to do venture capital.
Ask yourself what are you really good at and how do you exploit that to win?
Why invest in early-stage companies and not public markets? We want to focus on where our unfair advantages are.