Two Things I Never Thought I'd Hear a VC Say.

I could challenge ChatGPT in writing, talking, acting or dressing like a Silicon Valley VC.

I spent decades as a journalist in Silicon Valley, and my angle was always following the money and understanding the motivation of the (mostly men) writing those checks.?

There are so many cliches:

We want to be the founder’s first call. . .

Let us know how I can be helpful. . .

We're founder friendly. . .

The words "world class" have been strangled of all meaning.

How can members of an industry that is all selling the same product– money for equity– and prides itself on being contrarian all say the same words over and over again? Especially in an attempt to articulate what makes their firm different???

Even their rejections are often in verbal lockstep:

"We'll be rooting for you from the side lines. . ."

"We just couldn't get there. . ."

And my favorite from seed funds:

"It's just too early for us. . ."

It could be a drinking game if it wouldn't be such a dangerous one. Founders trying to raise capital would never be sober again.

So you have to understand how refreshing it was for me to read something that I would have never expected a VC to write. Two things, actually.?Both are in Mike Maples and Peter Ziebelman's new book “Pattern Breakers: Why Some Startups Change the Future” which come out on Tuesday June 9.

[First, a disclosure: Mike’s firm, Floodgate, was my very first consulting client, so I’ve gotten to play a tiny, tiny part in this book’s journey. At times I've felt guilty invoicing, because it's been such a fun project, and Mike has long been one of my favorite conversational sparring partners in Silicon Valley.]

Thing #1 I never thought I'd hear a VC say, aloud at least: Am I just a lucky fool?

Everyone else has thought this about a VC at some point in time, am I right? Right place, right time, you have an infinite checkbook other people’s money and you get to fail most of the time.?

How good are you? How smart are you? Aren’t you just throwing darts here? Couldn’t anyone do this job?

What’s unique about Mike is not only that he wonders this about himself, but that the feeling intensifies at a moment of huge triumph: When Twitch sold to Amazon for almost $1 billion.

Twitch, which he invested in back when it was the harebrained idea of Justin.TV, which he backed despite saying it was one of the dumbest ideas he’d ever seen.?

Do you know how many VCs at that moment would think the opposite? That the acquisition was evidence of why they were so good at this.

That even if they hadn’t seen it coming. . .they’d tell themselves that somehow their golden gut had.

They’d fall down a rabbit hole of soothing revisionist history, what they saw in the founder, even if the idea completely changed. . .they’d grab onto some innate wisdom or hunch that made them write a gigantic check in the first place.?

I have seen this again and again on exit day. And you know what? I am not hating; I would do the same thing too! It’s human nature to want to feel like there was a cause and effect. I did this once, and so I can do it many, many more times.?

I’ve seen several VCs take fewer risks after their first big hit, because they feel so boxed into “I did this once and now the pressure is on to do it again and again. . .”

My first book was called "Once You're Lucky; Twice You're Good" because of this specter of skill vs luck that permeates a place where you can go from zero to hero with a bank account full of zeros in the blink of an eye.

But human nature is what Mike and Peter are out to break us from in this book. We are hardwired from an evolutionary standpoint to pattern match. It’s how we keep ourselves alive. But Mike argues in this tight book, that it’s also why so few founders create breakout companies.?

And that’s the second thing he says that VCs never say: That pattern recognition is actually a bad thing.?

If you are in the tech industry, you know why this is REVOLUTIONARY. The number one thing that VCs say they possess that gives them the right to be kingmakers is pattern recognition of what makes a great founder, having invested in so many companies over so many cycles. This is their marketing pitch! Especially VCs who have never built a companies themselves.

So, Mike opens this book wondering whether he has any skill at all right when he’s on top and believes the biggest knock on him is the very thing most VCs brag about.?

Safe to say, this is not just another rehashed book on building companies.

If you are in the startup world, or have long cast a jaded eye at the insiders who fund it all, I encourage you to grab this book. At $30 and less than 300 pages, it’s a tight read, compellingly argued in Mike’s Texas-folksy-philosophical style. It’s an awesome gift to a young person starting their career, or anyone at a place of reinvention.?

Even if you aren’t in the tech world, the frameworks around how to stop following the same patterns, how to challenge yourself to break from comfort and familiarity will serve anyone.?

And for folks in big companies, the end of the book deals with how large organizations can learn to chafe from the patterns that usually give openings to smaller upstarts to begin with.?

Once you digest this book, you’ll see patterns holding us back all around us. (I mean. . . the insistence that the only person who beat Trump can be the only person who can beat Trump in the future comes to mind. . .)?

It takes courage to break from them. Even in this book, Mike wrestles with not falling into another pattern about . . . breaking patterns.?

Our brain so badly wants to follow them, looking for them and stepping out of them isn’t a switch you can flip; it’s more of a practice.?

“Is this really the right path or just another safe pattern my brain wants me to follow?”

Michelle Obama writes about this same thing in her book, “The Light We Carry.” The fear that she felt about her husband running for office and whether that was the kind of fear you should listen to. . .or the kind of fear that can feel safe, but can ultimately hold you back from your potential.

It’s the same force that powers that mean voice in your head, that tells you incorrect stories about yourself, that creates a negativity bias. . .

Our conscious brain isn’t interested in making us happy, any more than it is interested in making tech millionaires even richer. It’s just overcorrecting to keep us alive. Sometimes there’s a lot to be gained by questioning your conscious brain’s motives.