Newsletter

Founders, espe­cially of star­tups with big ideas, tend to believe that they con­trol their own des­tiny, which is a great men­tal­ity and prob­a­bly a key pre­req­ui­site for being a suc­cess­ful founder. How­ever, every com­pany exists in a set of mar­ket and envi­ron­men­tal con­di­tions. Ide­ally, those con­di­tions are such that com­pa­nies can pre­dom­i­nantly focus on their mis­sion and exe­cu­tion (Alpha) and not be overly con­cerned with broader geopo­lit­i­cal, macro­eco­nomic or finan­cial mar­ket con­di­tions (Beta). How­ever, as any inno­va­tion investor who has been around a while knows, there can be peri­ods (hope­fully brief) when exter­nal con­di­tions are so impact­ful that they must take prece­dence over the inter­nal objec­tives, at least temporarily.