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Tavel: Venture Investment Memos Work as Deductive Philosophical Logic Proofs

Sarah Tavel · #113 Sarah Tavel: The Value of Intellectual Rigor · Jun 15, 2021 · at 3:53

Benchmark General Partner Sarah Tavel explains how analytical philosophy and deductive logic structure venture capital investment decisions.

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“And I think investing is the same thing. Like when you're writing an investment recommendation or thinking about a potential investment, you also, you know, really what it comes down to is, is a proof in the same way where you have the premises, which may be a belief that you have about the future, the kind of product market fit, the founder market fit, all these things that you once again underwrite by, you know, understanding the competitive landscape, talking to customers, looking at the data, all those things. And trends. And if you believe all those hypotheses to be true, all those premises, then it follows that you should make the investment.”

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