One of my top 10 posts is one about how to get a job as a Venture Capitalist. It is worth a read, but much has changed since 2012.

What has changed?

1. There are a ton of micro funds (<$25 Million) now. In fact, 652 funds are now listed across US, Europe and Asia. There were < 1000 funds in 2012, so there has been at least a 60% increase in # of venture funds

2. There are now over 100 Venture funds with Scout programs. What is a Scout program? Scouts are individuals who are empowered to invest small check sizes ($25K – $50K) in very early stage companies. They are funded by the venture fund. There are in fact over 50 Scout programs specifically aimed at college students.

3. There are so many angels and angel groups. In 2012 there were 30K worldwide. Now China alone has 25K active angels who have invested in the last year.

If you are interested in getting a job as a Venture investor, then there are 5 paths now compared to 2-3.

1. Bring your own money (assuming you have money to invest on your own).
2. Start an early stage micro fund focused on a niche.
3. Be a VC Scout (there are a lot of resources on how this works).
4. Start an angel group or fund with others
5. Join a VC program as an analyst

If you look at the profile of venture capitalists across the world now, the Silicon Valley used to be where 65% of investors were in 2010.

Now in 2020, there are more funds outside the US, although the funded $ are still more in the US.

Lets look at each of these paths in detail:

1. Bring your own money. Most investors who go this route have 3 paths – a) They have family money – inherited, b) They have worked at an early stage startup or struck it rich early (many crypto currency investors are now VCs), or c) They have worked at Google, Facebook, etc., and decided after X years to invest in early stage startups.
2. Start a Micro fund. Most investors who go this route, have 3 paths as well. a) they were at a large VC fund and decided to strike it on their own, b) they were keen to start a fund and have friends and family who are willing to invest, or c) they started small, had 1-2 great investments early and grew from there.
3. Be a VC Scout. Investors who were scouts and then became a VC are few, but most are interested in learning and sharing more than making money.
4. Angel groups: Investors who started an angel group are typically helping their friends or alumni raise money and then they start to get some deal flow. Others get their colleagues from work to invest in a startup as a first step.
5. The VC Analyst program. These tend to be the most sought after, but far and few between in terms of opportunities. Many have terrific backgrounds from the top schools or had some success at a VC funded startup.

LinkedIn rolled out a new mobile feature to a limited number of users in certain countries called LinkedIn Stories.

If you are familiar with TikTok, Instagram , Facebook or Snapchat stories feature, it is fairly similar with a few differences.

There are very few “filters” for your story. You can make it look better, but the options are limited.

Second, they are ephemeral. I cannot confirm if LinkedIn is “saving” the stories someplace, but they are “gone” after 24 hours.

Third, they are very limited engagement options for users. Every comment comes to your LinkedIn inbox. So, no threaded conversations.

I have been using it for a week. I update daily with ONE stock tip or ETF that I am watching daily.

I like it so far. Each day I have been getting between 100 to 200 views.

Facebook stories has about 300 million users apparently, Instagram stories has 500 million daily active users (DAU), Snapchat stories has about 200 Million DAU, and TikTok has about 500 million.

Since LinkedIn has 400 Million users, the DAU is more limited and because stories has been rolled out to a very few number of people the feature is in its early stages.

There are some books that are good reminders of the things that you should not forget. While the items themselves are not very illustrative or insightful, the stories that remind you of them are what make them memorable.

This is one such book. The very accomplished Admiral William Mcraven gave a speech at MIT. He is a retired U.S. Navy admiral who directed the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

A former Navy SEAL himself, McRaven retired from the Navy in 2014. A year later he was hired as chancellor of the University of Texas system. He stepped down from the post in 2018 and is now a faculty member at the University of Texas at Austin.

You should read his entire speech (below), as well if you are keen. The book is an extended version of this speech.

There are 10 life lessons he reminds you in the book in 10 chapters.

Chapter One: Start Your Day with a Task Completed

Why is attention to detail important in your life and work?

Chapter Two: You Can’t Go It Alone
Why is it important to have a strong network of people who support you? Why is it important to support others in general?

Chapter Three: Only the Size of Your Heart Matters
Why is it important to not judge someone only by their appearance?

Chapter Four: Life’s Not Fair – Drive On!
How do you deal with adversity?

Chapter Five: Failure Can Make you Stronger
What adversity has made you stronger?

Chapter Six: You Must Dare Greatly
How can you “be daring” and take these risks in your life?

Chapter Seven: Stand Up to the Bullies
Sometimes doing what’s right means standing up for what you know is right.

Chapter Eight: Rise to the Occasion
What dark times have you gone through in your life? How did you rise to the occasion?

Chapter Nine: Give People Hope
How do you encourage people when things get rough?

Chapter Ten: Never, Ever Quit!
Why is it important to never quit?

Bob Iger Ride of a lifetime

I am a fan of business autobiographies. I loved Howard Schultz’s Pour your heart into it (4/5), and Shoe Dog Phil Knight (4.5/5) the most of the 50+ books I have read so far. I would give his book 3.5/5.

Since Bill Gates himself recommended the book by Bob Iger, I thought I should read it.

The story itself is pretty compelling, with the first few chapters mostly about his youth and childhood. The story of how he joined ABC, followed by his vision for Disney when he was being considered for the CEO role are the best parts.

I do not want to give the entire book away, but I felt the book itself did not give me any more glimpse into Bob Iger than what I had read in the press before.

He does not address the #MeToo movement issues, the book is very well scripted and he chooses not to reveal anything about himself more than what he feels is necessary and skips all the parts about his relationship with the previous CEO.

The great parts that I loved were his discussion with Steve Jobs before the acquisition of Pixar, the discussion of how the changing media landscape is a catalyst for companies such as ABC, FOX, NBC and CBS.

GirlGeek has a good piece on 60 women who are engineering and technical leaders. It is a very compiled list and I would recommend giving it a view.

I like this list a lot. I would love to get some more up-and-coming names, however. Most of the women in this list seem like they have already made it.

Some quick observations:

1. 90% of the women are in the bay area.
2. 85% are from technology companies (which is to be expected).
3. Except 6 of them (10%) every one has an advanced degree in engineering.
4. Google and Salesforce top the list with the most # of women technical leaders at 5 a piece.
5. Average # of years of experiences among the list is over 13.

You are in a meeting with a few others. There is a presentation or document which has been provided to all of you in the meeting. After 20 minutes of the presenter talking and in slide #11, you get a question that pops in your head, about something that was presented.

You ask the question – “Why is it …”?

The presenter responds “Yeah, that’s a good question. I think …”.

A few minutes later in slide #17, another person asks what you think is the exact same question, but phrased differently.

Everyone in the room exclaims “Wow, that’s an insightful question”.

You wonder if it is because you were asking the question early, or because you are never able to get your point across easily, or because others don’t view you as “insightful”.

If you ever wanted to have a bigger impact on most situations, where people consider your point of view as impactful and insightful, then read on.

Over the last 3-4 weeks, I have been reading over 50+ articles, books and research on what Insight is. Here is a summary.

The capacity to gain an accurate and deep understanding of a person or thing

First, the definition and origins. The word Insight (noun) comes from Scandinavian origins (insikt) meaning inner sight or wisdom.

The capacity to gain an accurate and deep intuitive understanding of a person or thing.

Merriam Webster dictionary

John Kounios is the leading insight researcher in the world, and a professor of psychology at Drexel University. He has done extensive work on understanding how everyone can be insightful.

First, most people solve problems in 2 ways

Analytical reasoning or Insightfully

If think you can just meditate on a problem for long and come up with an insight you are probably right, but most of us dont have that luxury.

Insight is like a cat. You can’t order it to appear. You can coax it. But you can’t command it. Creativity and insight flows from a particular brain state. And if you can put yourself in this brain state, you will be more likely to have these creative insights.

John Kounios

You can coax an insight by looking at the problem more creatively.

According to his research, there are 3 things that are important to put your mind in a frame to generate insights.

1. Positive Mood: Creativity flows from a state of feeling safe or secure. When you feel safe or secure, you can take risks. And creativity is intellectually risky. When you come up with new ideas, they can be wrong. When you try to implement new ideas, you can meet resistance.
2. Large Spaces: If you’re in a large space – a big office, with high ceilings, or outside — your visual attention expands to fill the space, and your conceptual attention expands.
3. Take a break: When you take a break from a problem that you’re stuck on and do something completely different, you forget the bad idea that you were fixated on. It allows other ideas, better ideas, to bubble up to the surface.

The problem is these are not solutions that are useful if you are in a meeting room with others (say nothing if you are in a Zoom call).

What can you do to be more insightful then?

There are 5 things I have found, each of which I will expand on next week. They are :

1. Ask the question “For this to be true, what needs to be false”?
2. Look for exceptions in the data
3. Only look for the anomalies in the data, argument or thesis
4. Reframe the question by assuming you are the “customer”
5. Ask yourself “If <someone else who you admire> were to look at this problem, how would they frame it?