Paul Buchheit - Startup Investor School Day 2

TL;DR

Paul Buchheit shares his investing experiences—both favorable and unfavorable—to illustrate that startup investing is an art, not a science, and requires extreme luck. He concludes that founder quality is paramount, and he uses a checklist of traits (clear concise communication, moves fast, accomplishes a lot with little, implausibly ambitious or frivolous ideas, talent magnet, makes something peo

Key insights

• Good startup ideas often look bad or trivial to established companies because if an opportunity were obvious, big companies would already execute it.
• Extreme luck is absolutely critical in startup investing; being an accredited investor already puts one among the luckiest people on earth.
• The best founders are those who are smarter and more insightful than you; you should only fund people you believe are better than yourself.