Neil Mehta

It's not JDC. All of those things matter. But if I picked one thing very early on, even in the startup, you could tell if the energy is not there, I'm more excited about the future. I mean, I just was in Europe a couple of weeks ago. A vast majority of people for it seems like 40 years have believed the best years are behind them, not ahead of them.

It's not JDC. All of those things matter. But if I picked one thing very early on, even in the startup, you could tell if the energy is not there, I'm more excited about the future. I mean, I just was in Europe a couple of weeks ago. A vast majority of people for it seems like 40 years have believed the best years are behind them, not ahead of them.

If you were running a company, that's the one stat you should care about more than anything else in the world. When I spend time with a founder and I'm talking to them about their business, I'm trying to figure out, are they high-focused, high-ambition, determined?

If you were running a company, that's the one stat you should care about more than anything else in the world. When I spend time with a founder and I'm talking to them about their business, I'm trying to figure out, are they high-focused, high-ambition, determined?

Do they have divergent thinking that allows them to see something in the world and in their business that other people would overwhelmingly disagree with but is right? So it starts with the founder, personality of that founder. And I haven't been able to sit down and write on a piece of paper I think every great founder looks approximately the same. Every bad founder looks different.

Do they have divergent thinking that allows them to see something in the world and in their business that other people would overwhelmingly disagree with but is right? So it starts with the founder, personality of that founder. And I haven't been able to sit down and write on a piece of paper I think every great founder looks approximately the same. Every bad founder looks different.

You know, there's some quote about- Yeah, that's exactly. This is controversial. I do believe there's an archetype for a great founder. And I think that once you see it and learn it, it's a repeatable process. And I think some of the things I mentioned are part of that. I think that you're looking for usually someone that's built a jaw-dropping customer experience.

You know, there's some quote about- Yeah, that's exactly. This is controversial. I do believe there's an archetype for a great founder. And I think that once you see it and learn it, it's a repeatable process. And I think some of the things I mentioned are part of that. I think that you're looking for usually someone that's built a jaw-dropping customer experience.

That's why we invest at the stage we invest in. Because it takes some time. It takes some time. It takes some time to get that experience right, especially in things like infrastructure SaaS, where at the beginning, the infrastructure process is not that good. It just takes time to get the product into a performance level where it can actually delight customers. Consumer is a little bit different.

That's why we invest at the stage we invest in. Because it takes some time. It takes some time. It takes some time to get that experience right, especially in things like infrastructure SaaS, where at the beginning, the infrastructure process is not that good. It just takes time to get the product into a performance level where it can actually delight customers. Consumer is a little bit different.

You could feel it right away. We're looking for defensibility in that. What technical or operational trade-offs have you broken that allow you to have the early signs of a moat? We're looking for competitive advantage. We have network effects, shared scale economies, counter-positioning, quartered resources.

You could feel it right away. We're looking for defensibility in that. What technical or operational trade-offs have you broken that allow you to have the early signs of a moat? We're looking for competitive advantage. We have network effects, shared scale economies, counter-positioning, quartered resources.

These are just adjectives we use to describe the characteristics of a business that allow it to produce unfair amounts of free cash flow over a sustained period of time. I tell this to our team all the time. I think with Buffett, you could sell 30 points of IQ and still be great. I think with us, you could sell like 40 to 50 points of IQ. It is not complicated.

These are just adjectives we use to describe the characteristics of a business that allow it to produce unfair amounts of free cash flow over a sustained period of time. I tell this to our team all the time. I think with Buffett, you could sell 30 points of IQ and still be great. I think with us, you could sell like 40 to 50 points of IQ. It is not complicated.

It is the discipline of only looking for those types of businesses and those types of founders. There is no secret sauce. It's just consistency, consistency, of doing that over and over and over again across thousands of companies.

It is the discipline of only looking for those types of businesses and those types of founders. There is no secret sauce. It's just consistency, consistency, of doing that over and over and over again across thousands of companies.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I think what's happened over the last 10 years in particular, but it's been happening for a while, is when I grew up in the industry and you drove down Sand Hill, there's like six firms. And the way the process worked is you'd walk into someone's office, and usually someone was famous. You'd be a no-name entrepreneur. You tell them your idea. They kick it around for a while.

I think what's happened over the last 10 years in particular, but it's been happening for a while, is when I grew up in the industry and you drove down Sand Hill, there's like six firms. And the way the process worked is you'd walk into someone's office, and usually someone was famous. You'd be a no-name entrepreneur. You tell them your idea. They kick it around for a while.