VC on Founder Temperament
Ben Orthlieb of Blue Moon, speaking on "The Full Ratchet" podcast, recalled advice from investor Jason Green about evaluating founders. The key insight was to "Invest in founders who are 50 times more brilliant than they are an ass." The comment underscores the importance of balancing technical skill with emotional intelligence and collaborative ability in leadership.
- The investor who originated the advice, Jason Green, is a co-founder of Emergence Capital, a venture capital firm with a history of backing successful enterprise cloud companies such as Salesforce, Zoom, Box, and Veeva. - Ben Orthlieb's current firm, Blue Moon, is described as an "AI native" seed fund that uses a quantitative, data-driven approach to investing. The firm leverages its own AI platform to analyze over 12,000 companies annually, focusing on founder characteristics to predict success. - Prior to founding Blue Moon, Orthlieb served as an investment scout for Emergence Capital, Jason Green's firm, providing a direct professional connection between the two. - The emphasis on founder quality is a widely held view in the venture capital industry. A 2020 survey of 885 institutional venture capitalists revealed that 95% considered the founding team an essential investment criterion, with 47% naming it the single most significant factor. - Blue Moon's analytical model for founder evaluation has reportedly led to a seed-to-Series-A graduation rate that is nearly three times the market average, suggesting the efficacy of a structured approach to assessing temperament and ability. - Venture capitalists often assess intangible founder traits beyond intelligence, including resilience, courage, adaptability, and vision—the ability to anticipate where markets are heading. - The podcast mentioned, "The Full Ratchet," specializes in demystifying the venture capital industry and frequently hosts investors to discuss their strategies and lessons learned from past successes and failures. - Green is also the founding chairman for the Kauffman Fellows Program, an educational institute for venture capitalists, and a founding board member of Endeavor, a non-profit that supports entrepreneurs globally.
