The ice king
#128 - From idea to Series A - Weekly Newsletter
3 minutes to reflect
Most companies don't die from bad products or tough markets. They die from leadership meltdowns.
I can still feel the tremor in the dining table when my father would slam his fist down in frustration. Whenever a business deal fell through, when equipment broke down, or when employees disappointed him, his response was always the same visceral explosion of anger.
This memory came flooding back recently when I encountered a fascinating observation about Mark Zuckerberg. Venture capitalist Marc Andreessen said something that stopped me in my tracks:
"A great superpower that Mark Zuckerberg has is he does not get emotionally upset in stressful situations. He is able to maintain an analytical frame of mind even when other people would be bursting into tears and hiding under the table. I have literally not once seen him raise his voice."
The contrast couldn't be starker. Where my father's default was emotional eruption, Zuckerberg's strength lies in emotional steadiness.
Andreessen explains why this matters: "Generally the thing that happens before a company goes down is the team cracks internally. The founders turn on each other. The management team dissolves. If you can keep the team together then most these companies can battle through most things."
When pressure hits your business, are you the fist-pounder or the ice king?
2 Resources to pro
The best VC in the world is European
Index Ventures doesn’t get enough credit. Largest shareholder in Wiz, second largest in Scale AI, largest in Figma, all are generational >$15b exits within 4 months. Top 3 VC firm globally, and arguably #1 IMO due to the consistency in fund size and returns they put out
Spotify has a secret weapon
In an interview from 2015, Daniel Ek is asked how Spotify will compete against tech giants like Google and Apple who recently entered the music space. He responds: "Apple and Google do this and 10,000 other things. We're specialized. We don't do anything other than our own service. This is all I do every day."
He continues: "The way you win in this fast-moving world… is by being super focused on solving one problem better than anyone else and by moving faster than everyone else in solving that problem. Sooner or later you're going to get defocused if you do a thousand things."
In 2015 Spotify was valued at $8 billion. Today it's valued at almost $100 billion.
1 reason to smile
Gratitude is the ultimate superpower!!!
Have a great weekend,
Simone