You just can’t make this up.

You just can’t make this up.

I’ve posted a story on April fool’s day for some years. For instance, my post about Novicap Air explained how my organization launched a novel airborne service (using the latest generation of hydrogen-powered drones, of course) to transport promissory notes, a sort of physical payment instrument.

Last year, because it was simply impossible to resist writing about the NFT craziness, my post introduced an innovative financial product that NFT collectors and investors could leverage to draw down funding against CryptoKitties. (The more attentive reader grinned when reading between the lines the subtle references to the dramatic implosion of a unicorn.)

The inbound investor demand to finance CrypoKitties was unprecedented, quite literally.

I was indeed flabbergasted when numerous investors inquired how they could invest in this - mostly investment grade - asset class that would yield 200 bps above comparable securities. Too bad I hadn’t included a PayPal button in the post!

Nonetheless, some investors - especially on the more institutional side of the spectrum - raised concerns. An over-zealous analyst at a bulge bracket bank looking to score a promotion managed to flag our supposed “exposure to high-risk sectors” during due diligence.

That’s why this year, to comfort compliance folks and regulators who appear to have a different sense of humor, I’m sharing a story that is stranger than fiction.


You just can’t make this up.


When I wrote this, I had no particular agenda except for telling an entertaining tale. In order to protect the innocent, the not-so-innocent, and those truly guilty, I’ve omitted certain details and changed names.

While morals are typically shared at the end of a story, I’m instead giving it to you upfront: life outside video games or movies rarely happens as dramatically as in this story, but when it does, it normally involves alcohol or drugs (sometimes both.) It’s no different in this story, in which I got a front seat to witness the most dramatic scene unfold.


OK, I have your attention now.


But let's start with the start.

The setting: the story is set in the late stages of a party thrown by some venture capitalist (“VC”) at a swanky bar. It was about dark o'clock and the bar was closing - those left were either trying to get their term sheet signed or to violate the open bar.

While I can’t tell you how many term sheets were signed that night, I can tell you a lot about people from how they act during an open bar.

As a tech entrepreneur, I've met hundreds of VCs during the last decade and, sure, some business is conducted over drinks when information and gossip (mostly the latter) is exchanged. Business remains an in-person game, also in the post-covid era.

Now kids, that night, I bumped into the clear winner in the race to inebriation.

I stumbled upon her hanging at the bar. She had an impressive shampoo-commercial head (given my haircut, I pay particular attention to this) and I offered a handshake. She didn’t accept, giggled, and gave me a je ne sais quoi look.

This didn’t feel like the start of a beautiful friendship.

I tried again, and eventually learned her name was “Marianne” (redacted).

Marianne sounded, well, drunk.

Speaking in exclamation marks, she asked, “Where you from?”

She learned to speak in a helicopter?

I must have explained my Belgian-Italian roots many times but she just cracked up as it was the best joke she had heard in a decade or so. She laughed, “What sort of combination is that! What did your parents do to you?”

Not terribly mature.

I further inquired, innocently, “And you?” I already knew the answer, but I thought it’d be funny to ask.?

By then I had understood that she wasn’t going to be too intellectually engaged in this conversation, but a slightly darker side of me immediately realized she’d become a great chapter for a book one day. A gloomier chapter of the book, that is.

Keep talking, mademoiselle.

We all know there’s no point in arguing with a drunk, but of course I argued - this was too much fun in the end. I tried, “What do you think about FinTech?”

She knew FunTech but barked at the idea B2B (business-to-business) applications could be valuable. Next, not paying attention to what I said, she turned around to hijack someone else’s beer at the bar.

Someone - anyone - please help her?!

When you're meeting someone for the first time at a party, one thing you tend to ask your new friend is “so, what do you do?”

“I’m with the fund!”

O-M-G tell me more!

“Ehm, OK, but what fund?”

She proudly names a well-known-redacted-early-stage-fund.

Where’s the TechCrunch reporter hiding here?

“And what do you do at the well-known-redacted-early-stage-fund?”

She said something - I sincerely hoped it was too few syllables for “associate”.

“Come again, please?”

This got her really fired up and, now waving her arms like a shipwrecked sailor, she growled, “I’m a PAAAAAAARTNNEEER!”


AY CARAMBA.


Now kids, not even your interpreter wanted to translate this message, but for those of you who don’t know, a partner is a leadership position at the top of the food chain in VC.

The rest of the conversation remained absolutely meaningless. (World War III had more or less started, however that didn’t seem a topic of much interest.)

I thought the show was over, but then she started swaying back and forth, as if the floor was shaking during an earthquake, and smashed her glass on the floor, drowning my shoes in beer.

Her boss, a GP (General Partner), was witnessing the scene in shock - I tried blinking to him in morse code, “Dude, do something!”

This is how you spend your management fees?

He was unsure how to react - until Marianne decided that more serious damage was needed and started crushing the shattered glass with her feet and a helpful waiter needed to intervene.


You just can’t make this up.


I called it a day and disappeared into the night thinking that was all, well, muy loco. What would be the talking points during the Monday partner meeting the week after?

Note this wasn’t a random frat party in some dark, unknown house full of intoxicated strangers. Neither was it an internal corporate party - the entire entrepreneurial spectrum was present with guests including entrepreneurs, co-investors, and even LPs (Limited Partners, investors in a VC fund).

Fair enough, maybe Marianne was catching up on drinking - revenge drinking - after the great quarantine ended. Fun, but scary and sad at the same time. We desperately need more women in VC and she wasn’t setting the right example. Would you want her on your board? Would you invest in her fund?

With the tech industry lubricated in capital, we’ll undoubtedly see more excesses and poor professional behavior (mostly from men) - frightening, but let’s call out bad behavior and turn them into entertaining tales.

Meantime, when it comes to well-known-redacted-early-stage-fund, I certainly swiped left.


Fernando de Espa?a

Enterprise Sales at Adyen | Payments | Fintech

2 年

She really crushed it that night??

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