There’s a funny joke in South Park where they parody the Simpsons for an entire episode saying “The Simpson’s did it already.” The Simpsons have so many episodes that every possible situation had already been covered.
When writing about Venture Capital or startups on the internet… Just know… Fred Wilson did it already. Yes, Fred Wilson from Union Square Ventures. I’m getting back into writing again after a fairly long gap, and I’m starting to have deja vu when starting posts, where either it feels like I had already written the post, or Fred Wilson did it already… and more clearly.
Fred makes it seem effortless, but every day he writes a post. People under-value the amount of insight he has given away to the market through his work. I’ve seen him call the top of the crypto market twice, and his posts about the craft of venture capital are better than any front row seat that you could get to learning the art.
My intent of this post wasn’t to focus on Fred, but he is a VC, he does fall under the topics that I cover in my posts.
As I know Fred super well… from speaking to him for 20 minutes once on a Skype (Not zoom, it was before zoom). I’ll give you a unique insight about him. The reason he is so successful is because he has strong opinions loosely held. Even when he writes he constantly leaves the door open to be wrong on a topic.
I have been wrong a lot in venture capital, and more often than not its because I’m stubborn rather than high conviction. I think that Fred is a natural at being high conviction rather than stubborn.
Something I've been mauling over in my head lately is the spectrum from "strong opinions loosely held" to "unfettered conviction in the product/idea". It seems like both have their place in entrepreneurship & venture, but knowing when to apply each is a grey area to me. Would love to hear your thoughts!
And I've "only" been following the both of you for the past 12 years. And for me it's probably easier to have (loosely held) strong opinions than it is to write about VC e-v-e-r-y d-a-y like Fred has done. I believe you need to have an open mind in order to have strong opinions.
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