Ramtin Naimi

And he was probably the most senior person who responded.

And he asked me to come in for a meeting.

I wore a suit and tie.

I walked into the office.

It was my first time walking into like a venture capital firm.

And I felt like a salesman.

Everybody was wearing jeans, t-shirt, baseball caps, sneakers.

Just based on the way I dressed, I knew I blew it on the initial meeting.

But he was kind.

He gave me some pointers.

He gave me feedback.

And I met a few other people as well.

But the consistent feedback was, hey, listen, your background's not that relevant to venture capital, but you should consider starting a company instead.

And over time, I just learned that there actually is no relevant background to venture capital.

Similarly, there's no relevant background to starting an art gallery, apparently.

And everybody suggested I should start a company.

And I think that's terrible advice to give anybody.

You should never advise anybody to start a company.

They should start it on their own or not start one at all.

But I ended up taking that advice and I started a company and I funneled everything I had left over from my hedge fund into that company.