Insight certainty 4/5 debate potential 2/5

Shear: Early-stage angel investors should back strong teams with bad ideas

Emmett Shear · Twitch: Emmett Shear · Jul 18, 2022 · at 24:40

Twitch co-founder Emmett Shear describes angel investing dynamics when reflecting on Paul Graham backing him and Justin Kan despite unrefined startup ideas.

0:00 / 0:21exact quote · 21.3s
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“In the beginning, the investable asset is not the idea and it's not the execution and it's not the research or whatever. The investable asset is the founders. And you're much better off investing in a good team that has no idea what they're doing or there was a bad idea than a bad team with a good idea, or even a okay team with a good idea.”

quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →

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