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Finding Genius: Venture Capital and the Future it is Betting on
Finding Genius captures the insights and anecdotes shared by prominent venture capitalists who first backed companies such as Airbnb, Uber, Twitter, Facebook, SpaceX, Tesla, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram. Between 2017-2019, Kunal Mehta interviewed dozens of successful venture capitalists to define entrepreneurial genius and to bring transparency to an industry that has often been a necessary sidekick to founders that shape the world we live in. Finding Genius attempts to answer a few key questions: How do discerning investors block out the noise to identify the next wave of innovation? What qualities do the ‘genius’ entrepreneurs share? Is there randomness to successful investments or a predictive trend that entrepreneurs and investors can learn from? The anecdotes in Finding Genius will search for these answers through the candid stories of the risk-takers behind the greatest entrepreneurs of our generation. Finding Genius is written and compiled by Kunal Mehta but will feature chapters written by a select group of successful venture capitalists who offer a diverse and expert perspective on new technologies including Artificial Intelligence and Blockchain as well as specific investment frameworks across industries such as Industrial Automation, Financial Technology, Future of Work, Education, Media & Entertainment, and Healthcare.
371 pages, Kindle Edition
First published September 1, 2019
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
December 7, 2019
Recommended reading for B-schools and entrepreneurs. The book gives readers access to the insights, thought process, and anecdotes of the top VCs who backed Airbnb, Uber, Twitter, Facebook, SpaceX, Tesla, Pinterest, Snapchat, and Instagram. The startup road is wide and opportunities for VC-startup collaboration abounds. Finding Genius offers a roadmap of the future of Ai, Blockchain technology, fintech, etc. A great addition to your library, which I assume already includes Lean Startup and Hard Things About Hard Things.
January 16, 2022
Finding Genius is a three-part book about entrepreneurship, venture capital (VC), and the technological evolution of the past decades and beyond. Based on the interviews with prominent early-stage investors, Mr. Mehta offers his insights into how entrepreneurial skills are developed, how investors identify genius founders, and the mechanics in fundraising. In the introduction, Mr. Mehta states that the book is written to guide young aspiring entrepreneurs with basic knowledge on venture capital. To me, the book addresses a much bigger audience of anyone who is simply curious about the how the world is evolving
On entrepreneurship, Mr. Mehta finds several common traits found among the great entrepreneurs: desire to accept risk, ability to construct a vision and sell it to others (storytelling), conviction in one's self, and magnet for talent. To what extent these traits are innate versus nurtured is debatable. Yet, it seems that great entrepreneurs grew up and thrived in an unstructured environment. With greater risk tolerance, they have courage to push themselves outside comfort zones. 'Antifragility' is a skill that can only be built over one's lifetime and cannot easily be identified in a 10-minute stock pitch. I have wondered why these early-stage investors are eager to listen to how founders grew up - no wonder we often come across immigrant founders, who have become more anti-fragility through constant challenge and struggle, succeeds in scaling their businesses (e.g. Elon Musk, Vladimir Tenev of Robinhood)
On VC, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and breadth of the subjects covered. The incentives of General Partners versus Limited Partners, story of Trae Stephens of Palantir & Founder's Fund and how the operational background, rather than a financial one, could build an information edge of a venture investor, and how the 'thesis-driven investing' at a16z ("software eats the world") and USV ("invest in large members of engaged users, differentiated by user experience and defensive through network effects") guides VC's investment decisions
On technological evolution, my favorite part of the book, Mr. Mehta invites prominent venture investors to introduce us to the ongoing disruptions in IT, finance, consumer, and healthcare. As much as Mr. Mehta emphasizes 'storytelling' as a must-have talent in raising VC money, some of the featured investors were great storytellers themselves. It was helpful to digest key concepts in AI, automation, healthcare, and social media, but the most insightful was how they were presented in a framework of investment theses. For example, looking at the lens of entertainment, community, status, utility, and privacy helped me understand how Tiktok and Instagram were able to prey on Facebook's lack of status and entertainment in the platform. Looking back, technological advances have brought so many changes to our daily lives during the past decade (I bought my first smartphone in 2014 ). Looking forward, disruptions will only accelerate, and the structural vulnerabilities in labor force (automation), healthcare system (direct-to-consumer diagnostics), education/ student debt (income-sharing models of boot-camps that put the educational providers' skin in the game), and finance (Robinhood, Better.com, and Lemonade appeal to millennials more than do traditional financial institutions post-GFC) will be tackled sooner or later
As an individual, it is not easy to get exposure to early-stage investing. For example, only accredited investors have the privilege to access venture capital. Yet, 'finding genius' offers one way to evaluate management quality of publicly listed companies. Only a handful of managers, for example, have exhibited 'ability to construct vision' and 'magnet for talent' (e.g. NIDEC and SHIFT in Japan). After all, whether be it an early-stage or mature, public listed companies, 'finding genius' in management is what sets apart the 'ten baggers' from the averages
---
(Note to myself)
- Labor shortage is an issue in the ST. But even during the height of COVID, automation was a big theme. Bain says $8tn will be invested in automation during 2020s. Labor shortage/ inflation fears will surely be transitory if we look in a ten-year span!
- AI -> ML -> DL (e.g. Face ID, speech recognition) / Reinforced learning (e.g. robot path in a warehouse)
- SaaS / RaaS (Robot as a Service): By reducing the burden associated with high capex and unproven ROI, it reduces not only the lifetime cost but also the overall cost of capital for operators
- Automation key concepts: 1) sense the environment, 2) store, process, and communicate the sensory info (i.e. filter and organize data), and 3) leverage SW to define insights from the organized data. SENSE - camera, sonar (sound and echo measure distance), Radar (RF 3D mapping), Lidar (light beams 3D mapping). Americans spend 6.9bn hours on traffic
- AI - ANI (Narrow), AGI (General). ANI is already prevalent (e.g. RPA)
- Fintech: Will there be 'financial supermarkets' for credit cards, insurance, etc.? Can Amazon-like platform emerge? Regulation/ compliance makes it hard to super-charge growth in fintech
- HC: Americans are low-informed and/o r passive with healthcare. With WHOOP, Livongo, and Maven Care, Direct-to-consumer diagnostics will disrupt the incumbents. Hardware is much cheaper versus 10 years. Doctors and HC professionals will be resistant at first (like Blockbuster was) but those who embrace first shall prevail (like Netflix)
On entrepreneurship, Mr. Mehta finds several common traits found among the great entrepreneurs: desire to accept risk, ability to construct a vision and sell it to others (storytelling), conviction in one's self, and magnet for talent. To what extent these traits are innate versus nurtured is debatable. Yet, it seems that great entrepreneurs grew up and thrived in an unstructured environment. With greater risk tolerance, they have courage to push themselves outside comfort zones. 'Antifragility' is a skill that can only be built over one's lifetime and cannot easily be identified in a 10-minute stock pitch. I have wondered why these early-stage investors are eager to listen to how founders grew up - no wonder we often come across immigrant founders, who have become more anti-fragility through constant challenge and struggle, succeeds in scaling their businesses (e.g. Elon Musk, Vladimir Tenev of Robinhood)
On VC, I was pleasantly surprised by the depth and breadth of the subjects covered. The incentives of General Partners versus Limited Partners, story of Trae Stephens of Palantir & Founder's Fund and how the operational background, rather than a financial one, could build an information edge of a venture investor, and how the 'thesis-driven investing' at a16z ("software eats the world") and USV ("invest in large members of engaged users, differentiated by user experience and defensive through network effects") guides VC's investment decisions
On technological evolution, my favorite part of the book, Mr. Mehta invites prominent venture investors to introduce us to the ongoing disruptions in IT, finance, consumer, and healthcare. As much as Mr. Mehta emphasizes 'storytelling' as a must-have talent in raising VC money, some of the featured investors were great storytellers themselves. It was helpful to digest key concepts in AI, automation, healthcare, and social media, but the most insightful was how they were presented in a framework of investment theses. For example, looking at the lens of entertainment, community, status, utility, and privacy helped me understand how Tiktok and Instagram were able to prey on Facebook's lack of status and entertainment in the platform. Looking back, technological advances have brought so many changes to our daily lives during the past decade (I bought my first smartphone in 2014 ). Looking forward, disruptions will only accelerate, and the structural vulnerabilities in labor force (automation), healthcare system (direct-to-consumer diagnostics), education/ student debt (income-sharing models of boot-camps that put the educational providers' skin in the game), and finance (Robinhood, Better.com, and Lemonade appeal to millennials more than do traditional financial institutions post-GFC) will be tackled sooner or later
As an individual, it is not easy to get exposure to early-stage investing. For example, only accredited investors have the privilege to access venture capital. Yet, 'finding genius' offers one way to evaluate management quality of publicly listed companies. Only a handful of managers, for example, have exhibited 'ability to construct vision' and 'magnet for talent' (e.g. NIDEC and SHIFT in Japan). After all, whether be it an early-stage or mature, public listed companies, 'finding genius' in management is what sets apart the 'ten baggers' from the averages
---
(Note to myself)
- Labor shortage is an issue in the ST. But even during the height of COVID, automation was a big theme. Bain says $8tn will be invested in automation during 2020s. Labor shortage/ inflation fears will surely be transitory if we look in a ten-year span!
- AI -> ML -> DL (e.g. Face ID, speech recognition) / Reinforced learning (e.g. robot path in a warehouse)
- SaaS / RaaS (Robot as a Service): By reducing the burden associated with high capex and unproven ROI, it reduces not only the lifetime cost but also the overall cost of capital for operators
- Automation key concepts: 1) sense the environment, 2) store, process, and communicate the sensory info (i.e. filter and organize data), and 3) leverage SW to define insights from the organized data. SENSE - camera, sonar (sound and echo measure distance), Radar (RF 3D mapping), Lidar (light beams 3D mapping). Americans spend 6.9bn hours on traffic
- AI - ANI (Narrow), AGI (General). ANI is already prevalent (e.g. RPA)
- Fintech: Will there be 'financial supermarkets' for credit cards, insurance, etc.? Can Amazon-like platform emerge? Regulation/ compliance makes it hard to super-charge growth in fintech
- HC: Americans are low-informed and/o r passive with healthcare. With WHOOP, Livongo, and Maven Care, Direct-to-consumer diagnostics will disrupt the incumbents. Hardware is much cheaper versus 10 years. Doctors and HC professionals will be resistant at first (like Blockbuster was) but those who embrace first shall prevail (like Netflix)
January 26, 2020
The book is simple yet precise with regards to the tips being discussed from the different capitalists insights. Perspective based on personal experiences. Which gives the book a very realistic twist. Highly recommend this book for business start up ideas.
March 29, 2020
This is actually two books in one. Kunal first provides guidance on thre VCs perspective then we hear from several VCs on various sectors.
It is always helpful to better understand investors.
It is always helpful to better understand investors.
September 15, 2021
I'm not going to be knit picky about typos as they relate to the quality of the book, but let's just say Tom Brady didn't run a 40 yard in 5 minutes and 28 seconds (~.25 mph).
Finding Genius is filled with great interviews from VC's, and contains descriptive chapters talking about metrics that VC's use measure success and what a VC considers a good investment. However, you finish the book unsure what the final take-away is. Does it tell you how to be a venture capitalist? Does it tell entrepreneurs what VC's are looking for? It's unclear to me.
I think the issue underlying the lack of conclusion is that VC is a fundamentally indescribable thing. It plays in the realm of Black Swans - unpredictable events. It's hard to learn from a VC aside from one lesson; Bet on highly improbable outcomes.
Many VC's jump through hoops to explain how they do it. How they find the best founders. How they only invest in SaaS companies doing x y & Z, but ultimately what they really do is take inordinate risk. To no fault of his own, Kunal Mehta cannot create a summarisable point about VC because there isn't one.
That being said, this is a highly readable book. I would just view it more so as a observational study of VC's rather than a how-to guide that will land every Finance Major at NYU a job in VC.
Finding Genius is filled with great interviews from VC's, and contains descriptive chapters talking about metrics that VC's use measure success and what a VC considers a good investment. However, you finish the book unsure what the final take-away is. Does it tell you how to be a venture capitalist? Does it tell entrepreneurs what VC's are looking for? It's unclear to me.
I think the issue underlying the lack of conclusion is that VC is a fundamentally indescribable thing. It plays in the realm of Black Swans - unpredictable events. It's hard to learn from a VC aside from one lesson; Bet on highly improbable outcomes.
Many VC's jump through hoops to explain how they do it. How they find the best founders. How they only invest in SaaS companies doing x y & Z, but ultimately what they really do is take inordinate risk. To no fault of his own, Kunal Mehta cannot create a summarisable point about VC because there isn't one.
That being said, this is a highly readable book. I would just view it more so as a observational study of VC's rather than a how-to guide that will land every Finance Major at NYU a job in VC.
January 25, 2020
The book is very informative. Insights and experiences shared by successful capitalist. I have learned that in venturing into something you need to be a risk taker. Its amazing that they have shared each of their experiences, struggles and success. Reading this book is a such a learning experience.
January 21, 2020
Good book if you're starting out with your first company and want to learn more from those who have done it before. This book introduced me to many different investors at once and I like how candid some of the quotes are in the book about the process of starting a company and how tough it can be sometimes.
January 21, 2020
I really enjoyed this book. It contains great insights from different Venture Capitalists and helped me think about the fundraising process in a different way through the anecdotes shared by the author. Highly recommend!
January 21, 2020
Good break down of technology. I hope to meet some of these people some day
January 19, 2020
This is like a collection of news feed
Not worth it. It seems to be talking about everything yet I feel learnt nothing. Just a collection of quotes from unknown investors with at best dubious track records
Not worth it. It seems to be talking about everything yet I feel learnt nothing. Just a collection of quotes from unknown investors with at best dubious track records
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews