A word about values
The English theologian G.K. Chesterton wrote, "impartiality is a pompous name for indifference, which is an elegant name for ignorance." Our values are, by design, not impartial. They are not widely accepted, and are few in number. Most people should not work in companies controlled by these values. Our values are an immune system: their usefulness is in what they reject. We believe that our values help us find, fund, and build n-of-one technology companies that make a difference in the world.
We aim to deliver outstanding returns for our limited partners by investing in high-integrity early-stage technology teams. The first priority of the fund is to locate and support these teams with our capital and experience. We will not pursue companies that are motivated by trends, that accept incrementalism, or that allow politics ('looking good') to impair their meritocracy. Instead, integrity is our first and most important filter.
As investors, we cultivate a reputation for fair dealing. We refrain from overpromising and follow through on the commitments we do make — to limited partners, to portfolio companies, and to their partners. We follow through even when our cost ends up being larger than planned. We ask companies to do the same, because customers appreciate partners whose statements and plans do not change with the wind.
We measure and report quantitatively. We prefer being a small part of a major success to being dominant owners of a middling company. Therefore we default to a transparent stance with respect to our ideas and our convictions. We talk about what is going poorly, frequently.
When it enhances the potential magnitude of outcome for our investors, we share our investment opportunities with others, because our purpose is to enable quality businesses, not to amass assets under management.
We believe in and rely upon the price system. We view prices as revelations of underlying truths about cost and demand. We help companies set prices based on the value delivered to the customer. We also help companies to understand – and over time to achieve – world-class cost.
We look for companies with novel technologies that deliver more output for less input relative to the current state of the art. We reject attempts to portray mere bundling, rearrangement, intermediation, aggregation, dealmaking, or marketmaking as ‘technology.’
When we do invest in technology platforms, our math needs to suggest that the total economic value its users realize will exceed the value of the company that creates it.
We learn from the wisdom of ordinary customers, but we put little stock in the wisdom of the crowd of venture capital investors and technology opinionists. We work on capital efficiency and good governance. And we never allow a management team to become confused as to what success is and isn’t — and it isn’t getting more money from investors.
