Does being Founder lead to being the best VC?

I don’t believe that being a Founder of tech startup gives you a better chance of being the best VC. I have never seen any data that confirms this, if you have it, please share that in the comments section. On the contrary, if you look at some of the best VCs of all time, they were NOT Founders of tech startups. The great thing about this industry is that regardless of your background, you can be a great VC. Identifying who is going to be the best VC, when a VC is just starting, is extremely difficult, which is why the job of being a LP is so challenging.

Here is the tweet thread that got me thinking about this topic:

the data doesn't confirm this. https://t.co/BKTe1j6l3C

— Shai (@shaig) November 20, 2018

It does post 2005.

— Keith Rabois (@rabois) November 21, 2018

Do you mean new GPs post 2005 have better realized returns if they were previously tech founders ? A lot of ways to slice this unless there is specifc criteria set for the query.

— Shai (@shaig) November 21, 2018

I have a list for you of folks post ‘05 who weren’t founders and have legit DPI

— Shai (@shaig) November 21, 2018

I do recognize that specific words are critically important for this debate. Entrepreneur vs Founder is a material difference. The original premise and original tweet was about “Founder” not Entrepreneur . That being said, most of folks on the list provided below were neither an entrepreneur or founder, a few did work for tech startups though but that is different debate.

Here is a list of folks who meet all of the following parameters:

They were not tech Founders before they started leading venture rounds
They started leading venture rounds (Seed/A/B) post 2005
They have substantial realized gains (not looking at TVPI), meaning they distributed meaningful money to their LPs (DPI)

If you know VCs that meet ALL of these parameters, please let me know in the comment section and will add them. In no particular order:

Rebecca Lynn – Canvas

http://www.canvas.vc/team-member/rebecca-lynn/

Ian Sigalow – Greycroft

https://www.greycroft.com/people/ian-sigalow/

Kirsten Green – Forerunner

https://forerunnerventures.com/team/kirsten-green/

Chetan Puttagunta – Benchmark

https://www.linkedin.com/in/chetanputtagunta/

Shana Fisher – Third Kind

https://www.crunchbase.com/person/shana-fisher#section-overview

Mamoon Hamid – Kleiner Perkins