Rare & Valuable Skills, Founders, & Solo Capitalists
Happy Monday!
Quick Update from me: Life continues to be incredibly busy both personally and professionally. Here are a few quick highlights from the last couple weeks:
Made a new angel investment
Visited some dear friends in Detroit
Life is both exciting and uncertain right now, but at least it’s not boring. Being in uncertain places has historically lead to good things so I remain optimistic. Now on to what I’ve been reading recently. 👇
Internet Reads That Caught My Attention 🔗
Rare & valuable skills/knowledge are the foundation by which most great careers are built. This blog post focuses on strategies for learning those skills. The recommendations include building & combining more than one great skill, mastering meta-skills (such as self-directed learning, communication, judgement, and negotiation), having a curated information diet, implementing learning habits, and pulling your learnings together through learning projects (blog posts, tweet storms, book summaries, building products, etc.)
34 Mistakes on the Way to 34 Years Old
Ryan Holiday is my favorite writer. He’s lived an interesting life — 19 year-old college dropout, Head of Marketing during the Rise and Fall of American Apparel, apprentice to famed author Robert Greene, multi-time best-selling author, podcaster, and angel investor. He’s largely responsible for Stoicism’s resurgence in certain circles over the last decade. His annual lessons are must reads.
The Best Founders are Fighters
Great read from investor and former operator Dan Rose on lessons he learned operating at Facebook under Mark Zuckerberg. Dan Rose has become one of my favorite follows on Twitter. His tweet threads are must reads.
Deals, Funding Rounds, & Market Moves 💰
Elad Gil Deal leads Anduril’s Series D
Anduril is one of the first companies in decades to challenge the established players in the defense industry, while addressing major technological challenges crucial to US national security.
First, this is a big win for a tech startup that is doing meaningful work for our country. Second, this is a meaningful data point towards the rise of Operator Angels & Solo Capitalists. Elad Gil is not a partner at Sequoia, a16z, or any other big name VC fund. Yet, he’d leading a late-stage round of growth funding for one of the hottest unicorns in today’s market. While I doubt angels and solo GPs will consistently lead funding rounds in place of VC funds anytime soon, this does speak to the prevailing power of individual reputation in the venture markets. Founders are increasingly focused on the people behind the money rather than the firm.
Harry Stebbings Raises a New $140M Fund
Re that last point, Harry Stebbings the 24-year old who rose to prominence in VC due to the 20VC podcast he started when he was 18, just announced a new $140 million fund, backing founders at both early and late-stage rounds. Personal reputation/brand and relationships are everything in Venture Capital. Harry Stebbings has carved out a personal moat in both through his podcast.
Books I'm Reading 📚
This book was co-written by Ben Casanocha (serial entrepreneur, writer, and venture capitalist) and Reid Hoffman (venture capitalist, early PayPal team, and founder of LinkedIn). It’s no secret that we live in a tumultuous age. Automation increasingly eats more jobs. Safe career paths and retirement pensions are becoming relics of a past age. The book argues that to survive and thrive in today’s career landscape you must do the following:
Treat your career as a startup
Develop a competitive advantage
Make adaptable plans
Build a strong network
Pursue breakout opportunities
Take intelligent risks
Remember that who you know is what you know (a concept they call Networked Intelligence)
Also, reading:
Intellectual Rabbit Holes 🐇
New York Times on The Health Benefits of Coffee (I told ya’ll coffee is healthy)
Content from me 👋
Final Housekeeping: 🧹 Hopefully, you found a few useful nuggets in this letter. Regarding newsletter cadence, I think I’m going to settle into sending on a roughly bi-weekly cadence. Eventually, I’d like to make it more frequent, but we all have to start somewhere. As always, any feedback is greatly appreciated. If I can support you in anyway, respond to this email.
Be well,
Andrew