What I'm Reading: August 1

Investing

• A paper showing that half of venture capital investments are "predictably bad"

  • VC firms make bad investments by betting on the horse, not the jockey - VC firms overweight the founders' backgrounds (specifically, education), and underweight info on the business itself (like financials).

  • I'm currently reading Narrative Economics, which could help explain why VCs overweight founders' backgrounds - the narrative of "founder first" companies has been burned into our brains: Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Mark Zuckerberg, Jeff Bezos, Elon Musk... all stories of visionary leaders charting a path to riches.

Etc

• Record number of car buyers cross $1,000+ monthly car payment

• The importance of Sales Enablement

• Culture Eats Strategy for Breakfast