Winston Weinberg

What you are trying to optimize is partner.

It's much more targeted.

You're basically targeting a group of people and you're saying, these are the people I want to work with and I want to gain their trust and then they'll invest in me versus I'm going into the market, I'm doing this massive competitive process and I want to maximize price.

That's good.

I think it really depends on who you get.

I'll give you an example of something that I haven't trusted VCs as much with, and I think I've been right in some instances, wrong in others, is hiring.

The areas I've been wrong the most in is when to hire a more senior exec.

The VCs have been right.

My partners are right.

They've been right.

I took too long to hire senior execs in some instances, and it caused us problems.

It created competitors when there shouldn't have been competitors, things like that.

The thing that I think they've been wrong about is who to hire.

And I think sometimes the problem that VCs have is they're managed up.

They don't actually see inside a lot of these businesses.

They see the board meetings.

And so sometimes the person who presents really well at all the board meetings or something like that, they think of as that's a really good executive.

And then that person gets a reputation for being a really good executive.

I'm not from the tech world.

I don't know any of these backgrounds.