Let’s start here: I love mining (rocks, not bitcoin). If you couldn’t tell from the picture, I’ve been obsessed with rocks since I was a kid. I went on my first fossil dig when I was eight years old. In high school, my dream job was to be a paleontologist…

About nine months ago I launched Dam Venture on the hilarious faux pas of Bain Capital Crypto, in classic VC form, introducing a team of all men on (you guessed it) international women’s day. …

Let’s face it, venture capital isn’t always the best respected profession. The tech community loves to make fun of the European vacations and yacht parties and generally, the tech community loves to make fun of VCs. Over the last two posts on Dam Venture we’ve talked about the not-too-bad lies…

Last week we established some of the key reasons that VC lie, and talked about some of the basic, and mostly beneficial lies that we tell. Today, we’re going to discuss lies that are in more of a grey area. The lies that don’t harm someone per se, but that…

Like it or not, venture capital at its core is a sales job. This framework forms the key pillar of understanding that one needs to know why VCs tell lies. In sales jobs, oftentimes it is more about how likeable you are, and how good of a relationship you have…

Let me start this off by saying, I hate baseball analogies. In my Medium drafts I literally have a 700-word rant on why baseball + other mediocre sports analogies are hurting our industry. Today, unfortunately, and much to my chagrin, I’ve found the use for my enemy. …

I figured we could all use something a bit lighter this week. One of my favorite trends on venture capital Medium has been people taking any new pop culture development and finding some ludicrous and beautiful way to tie it into our industry. Figured my B.S. (yes, Bachelor of Science…

Picture this: you’re within two days of closing a deal, just waiting on final board approval for the closing documents. It’s been a messy process, a down round and a recap, but you think you’ve found alignment with the CVC (corporate venture capital firm) who is a prior investor. You…

There’s a pretty famous article on Medium warning founders that VCs aren’t friends, they’re “frenemies.” Similarly, often I’ve heard VCs tell each other not to get too attached to founders, or that you shouldn’t be friends with founders. That’s terrible advice. Today we’re going to talk about why, and what…