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.