You Are the Company You Keep: Academy Companies, Alumni and Your Career Velocity

One of the biggest lessons I’ve learned over the last 24 years in Silicon Valley is the importance of the people and place. But to put it together even more crisply, “you are the average of the 5 people you spend the most time with.” It’s something I’ve written about or stated often because it’s that important.

This could be your school, this could be your city or even a mastermind group. But the more frequent occurrence is what company you work or worked at. This is where you spend a disproportionate amount of your day and time.

This is why starting your career at an amazing company is critical to your success and trajectory. A place full of brilliant, ambitious, entrepreneurial and talented individuals. Places known for all the spin outs and even greater success after.

In the past and traditional industries it used to be Goldman Sachs or McKinsey. In Silicon Valley, the most famous was Fairchild Semiconductors and the notorious PayPal Mafia. For a period of time in ecommerce during the early 2000s it was EBay. In Media, from 2002–2007, Yahoo! was the hothouse. I was so damn lucky to be there. It elevated my knowledge and gave me an understanding of what smart truly was. Some big pools of talent these days I’ve noticed, would be Coinbase in crypto and Stripe in general.

As a VC, I was also lucky to end up at 500 Startups and work there for the time I did. It was something of a clown show and looked down upon in Silicon Valley, despite Dave being ex-PayPal.

But it was pointed out to me, that unlike many other VC funds, there have been a tremendous amount of new and successful VC fund managers that have come out of it over the last 4–5 years.

The list is surprisingly long:

Sheel & Jake @Better Tomorrow Ventures (Fintech); Edith @Race Capital; Elizabeth & Eric @Hustle Fund; James & Yohei @Coral Capital in Japan; Pat, Mike, Chris @ Panache Ventures in Canada, Binh & Eddie @ Ascend Capital in Vietnam, Monique Woodward @ Cake Ventures ,Asher @ Sukna Ventures in MENA, Pankaj Jain of Saka Ventures in India, Sherif who runs the Dubai Futures Fund, or Neha @ 2048 VC, Tanya @ Southpaw Ventures & Andrea @ Mahway Ventures among others.

And I’d include myself in this illustrious group with Diaspora Ventures and my Personal Holding Company, Sukna Holdings.

This list of spin out VC managers, using a key metric of the industry, has a combined AUM (Assets Under Management) far larger than 500 Startups now 500 Global. (Although I should note that the most important metric for most VC funds is cash on cash returns, so still early days here).

This is a testament to the critical mass of talent that existed at 500 Startups before. Something we haven’t really seen at other places like YC, Techstars or other of the big VC Funds. And the point I am making again is that when it comes to picking a place and job to work at, focus on learning over earning.

And the way to do this is? Go to where the smartest but most overlooked people are. If you surround yourself with super smart people, it inevitably raises your IQ and acumen. The reverse effect will happen if you go to the wrong company. So do your homework and be super thoughtful and picky on where you work early in your career. You have no idea how much it matters and how much momentum this will give you in life.