Holmes was the one who rode the wave better than anyone else. When the TED talk era came to an end and people finally came to their senses, she was still running the same playbook and in the most scrutinized field there is medical technology. When people ask how she got so far, it is largely explained by the period she did it in and she got caught when the world suddenly woke up.
I write in this book, sometimes you have to ruin your reputation to save your life. So, you know, I like people. I don't like putting on this front of, oh, I'm, you know, too busy to answer the phone. And so I didn't really listen to any of them because I was trying to listen to whatever this little heart of mine was trying to say.
All you have to be is a charismatic fraud and uh be incapable of feeling shame no matter how many times you're proven wrong and uh you know, you our politics will will promote you to somewhere near the top of the heap.
Trump is the equivalent of political Chernobyl. Name anybody from his first administration with the exception of Ambassador Haley, who I think will be a formidable uh formidable candidate to perhaps on the Republican side, no one survives Trump. Everyone gets political leukemia if they're around him long enough.
The biggest thing I've learned is that in venture, your reputation is everything. You can't hide from your track record. Every investment you make, every founder you back, every check you write — it's all public information, and LPs are going to do their homework.
The very specific allegations in the lawsuit went so much against what people loved about her in such a big way. On top of that, like she's very been very public about saying like she's passed the body positivity movement and now to body neutrality. And so, you know, I think for a lot of people is like a little bit of a brand betrayal.
The thing that's so interesting about private markets is that the fundamental informational advantage is not that you have better data — it's that you have access to data at all. In public markets, everyone has the same 10-K. In private markets, whether you get the information memo is itself a function of your network and reputation.
Sam Altman, against the backdrop of Silicon Valley hype culture and startups that balloon to massive valuations based on promises that may or may not come to pass in the future, and an increasing embrace of a founder culture that thinks telling different groups different conflicting things is a feature, not a bug…Even against that backdrop, Sam Altman is an extraordinary case where everyone in Silicon Valley who expects those things can't stop talking about this question of his trustworthiness and his honesty.
6mo ago
Underscored — save the words that stop you in your tracks.
