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Tavel: Ex-operator VCs act as harmful crutches by micromanaging functional roles

Sarah Tavel · #113 Sarah Tavel: The Value of Intellectual Rigor · Jun 15, 2021 · at 30:19

Benchmark General Partner Sarah Tavel discusses common failure modes among startup board members and investors.

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“And this is sometimes the weaknesses that ex-operators have when they transition into investing is thinking, oh, I can do this and I'm going to dig in on, in the company and get, you know, help them with growth or help them with whatever it may be. And it ends up acting as a crutch to the CEO. And so instead of the CEO hiring the person that they should hire, so they have that inside the company, you know, like working on it 24 seven, you have this person who thinks that they're really good at whatever functional level, whatever function it is, coming in and really causing more pain”

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