The topic of smart

On the topic of being smart, the only thing I've clearly noticed is that it's a lot easier to sound smart than be smart.

There are people I know who sound incredibly smart -- almost like they've got it all figured out. Then you talk to them in person and they themselves will admit that they often don't have a clue what they are doing. It reminds me of when I saw a classmate last year and I was told "it's a lot easier to make decisions in case studies than when you have to make them on your own."

If you didn't know these folks, you just might think they're brilliant.

Maybe it's that sounding smart means you are not in the situation and aren't clouded by the facts, because you are "above the situation." Maybe being smart is tough because everything is personal, everything is ambiguous, and you care about the result because you have real skin in the game. Whatever it is, "being smart" is more nuanced than I first imagined.

Copycats

"Copying someone can tell you what to do, but it can't tell you why you're doing it, and you're probably not going to do something well if you don't know why you're doing it." -Paul Graham

How founders "compare notes"

Founders talk about how they're treated by investors, both VC's and angels. I "compare notes" with startup founders and I know that many more people do the same thing. More importantly, founders act on what they hear. I've noticed several things, but want to focus here on how founders block deal flow and founders sway deals.

On the blocking point, one of the meetings I had with a startup founder led to a discussion about investors who exhibit poor behavior. The person I was talking to brought up the fact that they have blocked at least a few deals for a VC who lied to them about a conflict of interest. I've seen this happen a few times and with particularly interesting companies. What is not captured here is how often this happens and what sort of tangible impact it has on investor deal flow in the future - and I'm not sure there's currently a way to measure that, though AngelList reviews are one attempt that could begin to tie this all together.

In terms of founders swaying deals, I can personally attest to this one, in the positive sense. An incredible investor of ours asked for help talking to a founder to explain why the founder should take our investor's money versus someone else. I was very honest with the entrepreneur and told them everything about this investor, and of course there was way more good here and the founder took that investor's capital. Well, I've seen the opposite happen as well - founders can sway other founders to not take capital.

It's interesting to see the above play out multiple times, rather than as one-off things. I know that a few initiatives over at AngelList could bring transparency to this offline trend and we'll see if they can figure out an elegant, enduring way to quantify both blocking and tipping of deals at scale. But until then, founders will always be talking with one another behind the scenes and I'm hoping high quality founders can help one another out even more. The positive byproducts of this will be increased investor accountability as well as the sharing and blending of "institutional" knowledge between startup founders. Both are very good things.