Patrick O'Shaughnessy

So you have to convince the founders to take your money and not other people's.

And I love this idea that the pitch you give to founders that's increasingly proven true is that by taking your money, they're effectively getting a fantastic fundraising partner for the future.

You and Abstract are lowering their future cost of capital.

Talk us through that pitch that you give and then how you execute against it.

Having done so many of these where you're helping a founder, let's focus on series A to start because that's what follows what you do.

What have you learned about running these processes well?

And I'm interested in very nitty gritty detail.

What time of night to call the VC or something to get the feedback or how to solicit true feedback that's not whitewashed or something.

That's a fair way to describe it.

What have you learned about the dynamics of who tends to win at Series A when they want to?

If you take a snapshot today of Abstract,

And you had to go out and gather feedback from like everyone that engages with the firm, founders, LPs, other venture investors, other random people.

And you bucketed all that feedback into a spectrum.

What would the most complimentary people say?

And what would the most critical people say, do you think?

I can't help but think about all the different art world analogies that you've built very quickly.

One of these talent spotter up and coming galleries.

And so, of course, it demands the question when and if you'll become Gagosian.

What feels missing from the core machine today?

You mentioned speed being an objective function that you optimize around a lot.