The Twenty Minute VC (20VC): Venture Capital | Startup Funding | The Pitch
00:32:07 · Harry Stebbings, Luca Ferrari
[00:32:07] S1: Luca, do you care what other people think? Do you care? [00:32:10] S0: Unfortunately, yes. That's the second. It's part of the... I was just mentioning I'm too concerned about disappointing others. I don't think I want others to think highly of me. I I don't think I'm egocentric in that way, but it really bothers me if they hate me or think poorly of me. So it's more like the the downside that I or the negative end of spectrum that really annoys me or frustrates me. The... I don't necessarily seek to be on the other end of the spectrum and be praised, but but I hate it when they really don't like me. And that's a major handicap in in my role. Like, if you... Many of the best CEOs, they don't give a shit to a fault even. I think it's a superpower to have. I've tried to be more resilient emotionally in that regard. Over time, I've gotten more fatalistic and you grow a thicker skin. You know, when you get criticized a lot, then at some point, you either die or or or give up or grow a thicker skin. So I've been able to grow a thicker skin, but that's an issue for sure for me. [00:33:02] S1: I was walking in the park with a friend of mine who's the founder of a $20,000,000,000 business, and I was moaning about something. And he was like, Harry, shut up. Your job is to get punched in the face 50 times a year and just get up every time. That's life as an entrepreneur. Like, get on with it. My question to you is, what do you tell yourself when you do get punched? When you do get that hit down? What does that voice in your head say?
00:33:26 · Luca Ferrari
[00:33:26] S0: I think I'm very self critical to to a point where maybe it's unhealthy. I wouldn't recommend that necessarily to others. I don't think it's part of my character to give up. Now, at least in the situations I've been so far because there's always something harder and maybe there is a point where you break down. But I don't think I can claim to have to have gone through, you know, the truly difficult things in life that some people have to go through. My my challenges have been business related, which I find are, frankly, luxury problems to have. You know, I've been in the situation where I was complaining to particularly to other people in similar roles. But in hindsight, I think it's irritating that people like you and I complain about these sort of things because we really are privileged. I mean, come on. We we were born and raised in somewhat affluent countries and and clearly had a chance to try our hand at things that are certainly not not terrible. I mean, it's a privilege to be able to do what... At least what I do. I I think you probably feel the same way about what you do. So maybe we should just probably just take a step back and have a laugh, you know, the real problems in life are not these ones.
00:34:26 · Harry Stebbings, Luca Ferrari
[00:34:26] S1: Absolutely not. The life of a venture capitalist is brutal, Luca. We we are positively suppressed as a as a class of people. No. I I completely I completely agree with you. My grandfather, I found out, earned like £7 an hour shoveling gravel on a golf course at 82. And I was like, you know what? A little bit of perspective is important. I I wanna touch on... [00:34:48] S0: And and there's worse than that. I mean, that's the thing. That's not even as as bad [00:34:52] S1: as it gets, you know, so... I I do wanna touch on the people around you because so many people told me about the talent density that you built. And you mentioned before to me about talent and motivation density. It's quite a specific use of words, actually. It's not like, oh, we have great people. What did you mean by talent and motivation density?
00:34:52 · Harry Stebbings, Luca Ferrari
[00:34:52] S1: as it gets, you know, so... I I do wanna touch on the people around you because so many people told me about the talent density that you built. And you mentioned before to me about talent and motivation density. It's quite a specific use of words, actually. It's not like, oh, we have great people. What did you mean by talent and motivation density? [00:35:11] S0: Yeah. I I think so. We we built a framework internally to describe exactly these sort things. But the short of it is that three important components are talent, which is how good you can be. Then there is experience, which is cumulative exposure to relevant experiences, which will help you, based on your talent, unlock your potential. And then there's motivation, which is kind of a multiplier factor going from zero, let's say, to one, where based on how much you care to be great in that particular context, you'll do better or worse within the range determined by your talent and and experience. It's a trade off. When you hire people, you can say, I wanna hire for experience, talent, motivation. You can, but you're gonna do worse at any one of these than if you focus on just one or two. In our case, we chose to focus on talent and motivation. Almost entirely disregarding experience. Experience, we can provide Talent, we can't. Motivation, we can we can try to create the conditions for it, but you don't change what what someone wants and cares about. And and this is the way in the long term we have the best team we can.
00:35:11 · Luca Ferrari, Harry Stebbings
[00:35:11] S0: Yeah. I I think so. We we built a framework internally to describe exactly these sort things. But the short of it is that three important components are talent, which is how good you can be. Then there is experience, which is cumulative exposure to relevant experiences, which will help you, based on your talent, unlock your potential. And then there's motivation, which is kind of a multiplier factor going from zero, let's say, to one, where based on how much you care to be great in that particular context, you'll do better or worse within the range determined by your talent and and experience. It's a trade off. When you hire people, you can say, I wanna hire for experience, talent, motivation. You can, but you're gonna do worse at any one of these than if you focus on just one or two. In our case, we chose to focus on talent and motivation. Almost entirely disregarding experience. Experience, we can provide Talent, we can't. Motivation, we can we can try to create the conditions for it, but you don't change what what someone wants and cares about. And and this is the way in the long term we have the best team we can. [00:36:10] S1: Let's just unpack this. Like, talent, what does that mean, and how do you test for it? Is it raw skills, and how do you test
00:36:10 · Harry Stebbings, Luca Ferrari
[00:36:10] S1: Let's just unpack this. Like, talent, what does that mean, and how do you test for it? Is it raw skills, and how do you test [00:36:16] S0: for them? We try to test people as much as possible, practically and measurably. We have come to be wary of interviews, at least the more traditional and structured interview where interviewer will just ask a bunch of questions and then tell you how they feel about the candidate. We felt... We we discovered that is not a good predictor. And so we try to have practical tests or at least tests to simulate, or require the underlying abilities that the actual job, will require. And we try to go more toward general problem solving abilities than as I said before, acquired knowledge. So we're fine to have someone who doesn't know the things as yet, as long as they show us that they have the work ethic, the ability to learn, the right teamwork and mentality to then be great at our company. [00:37:02] S1: So that's talent. Motivation? How do you test motivation?