The Top 1% of the Top 1%
People like to inveigh against “the top 1%.” In startups, I care about the 1 % of that 1 %--the founders who bend reality and build generational companies.
After two decades of rubbing elbows with, working alongside, and investing in what I call the special forces of the tech world, I’ve come to believe their edge comes from a repeatable recipe. Miss even one ingredient and, like a cake taken out too early, the whole thing collapses.
The “Safe to Tweet” Traits
Mission obsession. SpaceX survived three launch failures because Elon Musk is consumed by getting humanity off‑planet.
Non‑obvious insight. Brian Chesky bet strangers would stay in each other’s homes--Airbnb now hosts millions of listings.
High‑velocity iteration. Facebook’s early “move fast and break things” mantra shipped product weekly while rivals debated roadmaps.
Resource magnetism. Sam Altman pulled world‑class researchers and billions into OpenAI long before revenues arrived.
Adaptive rigor. Slack was born the Monday after Stewart Butterfield killed his game Glitch.
Talent‑density focus. Jensen Huang’s “tiger teams” let NVIDIA out‑innovate chip giants ten times its size.
Extreme tenacity. Jeff Bezos rode out a 90 % market‑cap crash, then doubled‑down on AWS and Prime.
Trust‑building storytelling. Payal Kadakia’s clarity of vision let ClassPass raise four rounds despite an early pivot.
None of these shocks anyone, yet founders who consistently stack them become outliers fast.
The “Say It Quietly” Traits
Very high cognitive ability. Large‑sample studies show general ability boosts venture returns more than salaried earnings.
A pinch of dark‑triad drive. Moderate narcissism fuels the will to start and scale; Travis Kalanick used that edge to ram Uber through regulatory walls.
Some personal downside protection. Founders from higher‑income households can forgo salary and tap early friends‑and‑family money, extending runway.
Dense elite networks. Strong professional ties shorten the time to first customers and first term sheet--Larry & Sergey piggy‑backed on Stanford’s who‑knows‑who in Google’s Year One.
Mid‑career domain mastery. The runaway 0.1 % exits are disproportionately started by forty‑something experts who already “know where the bodies are buried.” Jensen Huang again: he spent years in chip design before founding NVIDIA and still runs it three decades later.
These aren’t polite dinner‑party topics, yet the data keep bringing them up.
The Truly Unmentionable
Every VC’s memo has a secret column with line items like “I just didn’t like them.” Chemistry, arrogance, ethical static--call it what you want. It kills more deals than any term‑sheet clause.
So--What Now?
When a founder pitches me, I eventually ask: “Can you convince me you’ll become the uncontested best in this category? How, exactly?”
Pedigree is optional; the roadmap is not. If you can articulate how you’ll acquire (or already possess) the ingredients above--and how you’ll compensate for the ones you lack--you’re starting from a position of strength.
See you on the summit.
