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Stephen Fleming Follow

Changing your business trajectory.

Good advice.

Ruben @rdominguezibar

Bill Gurley made public a letter he wrote 15 years ago answering one question: "So you want to be a VC?"

The parts that sting the most:

▫️ A VC job is 80% salesmanship. "You sell your way into deals, you recruit constantly, you help create bus dev deals. It's a sales job."

▫️

Good advice.

Erik Bruckner @E_Bruxxx

One thing deep tech / hard tech founders don’t appreciate enough: some of the best capital comes from family offices. Many are founder-operator types, think long-term, move quickly, well networked and generally understand industrial businesses better than VCs. Traditional venture

Sarbanes-Oxley was so obviously destructive that neither Sarbanes nor Oxley ran for re-election.

Sarbanes-Oxley turned going public into a $3 million annual compliance nightmare. IPOs dropped 76% in the decade after 2002 -- from 457 average annual IPOs in the 1990s to just 108 from 2003-2012.

The compliance costs hit small companies hardest (obviously). Goldman Sachs

February 2, 2026

“The median growth-stage venture-backed company cannot go public at a valuation that returns capital to the late-stage investors.”

True. And this is a real problem.

Will Manidis @WillManidis

http://x.com/i/article/2018312833503465472

January 27, 2026

Good advice.

ℏεsam @Hesamation

everyone must read this piece from Steve Jobs

January 17, 2026

All the important discussions between founders and investors should happen BETWEEN board meetings. The actual board meeting should be (1) a fulfillment of legal requirements, and (2) a chance to have 2nd- and 3rd-tier managers present their work, and give them a chance to shine.

Todd Saunders @toddsaunders

Most early stage founders are bad at board meetings. I was one of them!

Not because they lack effort, but because they think the job is to impress instead of to operate.

After 38 board meetings as a CEO, I learned the opposite lesson: the best board meetings feel boring,

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