Jason M. Lemkin argues investors should back CEOs who are better than them. When founders fall short of that bar, products decay under competition. His investment in Algolia's founders proved the rule right.
The second piece of advice is and I think actually this is a rule I've bent over time and regret it every single time I do they have to be better than you you have to invest in CEOs that were better than you you meet the CEO who I don't know and he's not better than you Harry you shouldn't invest you know we're jumping around a lot but if we go back to Algolia and again this was the first venture investment I did when it was unanimously no and I still did it but the founders were clearly better than me they were better than me and I've never and where you can the mistakes I've made is whether there's traction or the product's cool but the founders aren't better than me because this stuff's so hard it's so competitive it's so agile that the founders aren't better than you in two to three years the products decayed with against the competition okay.
