Is venture investing fundamentally a young person's game, or can sustained intensity deliver comparable performance at any age?

Martín Escobari · Nov 11, 2022

Investors get materially better over time through accumulated experience and pattern recognition, provided their mind doesn't fossilize with age

Experience and accumulated knowledge make you a better partner to entrepreneurs, but an old-fashioned mind cancels that gain

34:18 Accumulated experience improves investors unless their mind fossilizes with age

Martín Escobari · Nov 11, 2022

Investors stay relevant and impactful longer by combining accumulated wisdom with playfulness, humility and willingness to look silly, rather than becoming a preacher of truths

Young minds wonder, experiment and laugh at themselves; old minds moralize and preach, which is what makes an investor obsolete

35:38 Combining wisdom with playfulness and humility sustains relevance longer than becoming a preacher

Harry Stebbings · Oct 2, 2023

You can always go further professionally alone — without a partner or kids — because venture is a young person's game of grind and hours

When it is just you at your desk meeting founders and focusing, you can do much more

6:23 Lacking family obligations lets solo investors out grind peers

David Cahn · Aug 5, 2024

Venture is not simply a young person's game — youth and experience each carry distinct advantages, and an investor should play the game their own age allows

He can't play Doug Leone's game because Doug has far more experience; his own value proposition is that he's the same age as founders and will grow with them over twenty years

60:14 Each age cohort has distinct advantages so investors should play to their own ages strengths

Saam Motamedi · Jul 15, 2024 · hedged

What matters in venture is being wired for relentless, always-on intensity rather than being young; if you are not wired that way you are finished, regardless of age.

Some investors, like his partner Asheem, have done it for over twenty years, still work seven days a week, and will drop everything to meet a high-quality founder tonight; the lagging nature of venture just hides decline for a while.

5:28 Sustained relentless intensity not youth defines a great investor

Harry Stebbings · Jun 17, 2024

Keith Rabois says his biggest weakness is sourcing and staying relevant, because sourcing is a young person's game

32:20 Sourcing specifically is a young persons game unlike broader investing skill

Rob Go · Jun 23, 2023

Venture capital is a young person's game

The energy and hustle a young person can deploy is a genuine competitive advantage, whereas the knowledge of long-tenured investors can be acquired if you're resourceful — energy can't be replicated

4:54 Youthful energy is an unreplicable advantage while investor knowledge can be acquired