McCormick: Backing the right founder is a compression algorithm for research
Packy McCormick · How Writing Led To Investing In Ramp, Scale AI, Replit, Varda | Packy McCormick, Not Boring · Sourcery with Molly O'Shea · Feb 14, 2025 · at 12:42
Packy McCormick, founder of Not Boring Capital, discusses his diligence methodology and explains why founder evaluation supersedes extensive market and strategy research.
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“I do think, like, and people say this, and it's cheesy, and it's, like, also true, is that the founder really matters, and, like, there's definitely a midwit curve on that that I've written about before, which is, like, You think founders really matter and then you're like, no, no, no, market and like strategy and whatever else in the founders. And it's true for like an interesting reason, which is that like, if this person is actually really good, every question that you've had, like they've thought about, they've answered really well and they're willing to commit their life to it where you're like talking about one of your, however many checks in a given fund. And so I think like the right founder is like the shortcut for everything else that you would research is like, They've thought about it and is right. But then a lot of that research is figuring out, like, actually, are they good? So like, it's definitely circular, but if you can figure that out you know, it is a compression algorithm for the rest of it.”
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