The Rite of the Counterintuitive

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Venture capital investing is the practice of behaving counterintuitively by going for the risky opportunities that seem impossible or untouchable to others, because they lack the network, the knowledge, or the advantages that mitigate the risks that come with this style of investing. Why can they do this? Partly it's because they invest in founders and spend lifetimes learning about them, collaborating with them, and understanding how they work. You invest in a founder who: 1. Mitigates risks because she is talented, resourceful, creative 2. Is surrounded by people who can eliminate risks by being extremely good at what they are doing 3. Is working in such a blue ocean area that nobody can come close to delivering risks against them . VC investors with powerful networks use those networks to build and collaborate with founders to make them really great. The business is the end result. The VC funds ensure the scalability of the high risk option, mitigated by people and opportunity. Those are my lessons from this week.

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