New year, new thoughts, link to essay below:
1/ Venture has developed a remarkable talent for discussing everything except the work.
2/ As the industry scaled, “portfolio construction” became a stand-in for seriousness: spray-and-pray vs concentration, reserves, fund size. Legible. Defensible. Often evasive.
3/ The market is full of ride-along funds – small & large – buying optionality and outsourcing the hard thinking. Present on the cap table, absent from the work.
4/ The parts that decide outcomes don’t fit in a memo. They happen in the territory: distribution forks, pricing philosophy, talent sequencing, the unglamorous constraints that shape the whole company.
5/ Venture only earns its place if it can produce serious outperformance. Otherwise it’s an expensive index – with worse liquidity and better dinner invitations.
6/ The common rebuttal is “you can’t know, therefore diversify.” Modest-sounding, but it quietly abandons the idea that venture is a craft.
7/ A producer-style fund doesn’t require clairvoyance. It requires a structure where decision-quality and attention can compound: meaningful ownership + a falsifiable view of value creation.
8/ In Europe – smaller exits, harsher scaling constraints – right-sizing and ownership matter even more. They’re not vibes; they’re margin of safety.
9/ Full essay: The Producer’s Craft – why venture is elite curation, not a playlist. mgntc.com/blog/the-produ…
(With thanks to @honam for inspiration.)
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