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VC Managers: Finding your style

VC Management

The noble quest to find what non-PE style, shitty management and mentor looks like in an unstructured job like vc.

Granted, not every single VC likes to consider themselves as managers. Some of them prefer

There are four parts to this job. Nobody is good at all four:

Four aspects to the job:

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Investor
Your MOIC; how good are your investments?
Asset Manager
Available $; What’s your financial strategy for the fund? Does it work?; did you make a crypto-fund in 2021?
“VC”
Thought leadership; how much can you sell your money?
Fund Manager
Are you able to build/nurture great investors? Do people want to work for you?

How to be a bad manager:

There are four cardinal no’s to being a VC manager:

1) Take credit. Here’s a hot take, stop promoting PE-like competition within the fund. As least for the next 5 years, not a single fund is that differentiated enough to have a disjoined team.

2) Force. This job is inherently independent - at least, that’s what it should be. Similar to how you’d work with founders — find the styles and ways of being your underling is good at. Stop forcing the way it worked 5 year ago, explore it, try it, but don’t force it.

3) Be rude. Don’t be a dick.

4) Own relationships. This goes back to the take-credit point, but this is supposed to be a team. One person wins, everyone wins. I get that deals are everything, but check the employee-churn rate at the most internally competitive funds — it’s high.

Michael Scott

I’m not old enough to know how to be a good manager. But I have my two cents for the not great bosses. Didn’t you all watch The Office? Did we not learn anything about how much work means to people? How to be nice to one another?

This section isn’t to say that there arent/I haven’t had incredible bosses, but it is telling some that I’m seeing poor management decisions affect Junior investors more than you know.