How To Thrive In A Career You Actually Love...Running Down A Dream - By Bill Gurley

Happy Sunday…

I have been trying to come up with a fun name for a book about my investing career. The best one at the moment is ‘My Alpha is Your Alpha’. I have had so many great mentors since I stumbled onto Fred Wilson’s blog in 2006 and started Wallstrip (which he became the first investor). Fred gave ‘alpha’ away and because I was coming from the stock market and hedge fund world I was shocked. On Fred’s blogroll at the time (blogrolls were great) were links to Brad Feld, Bill Gurley and many other legendary venture investors - none of whom I had heard of at the time, but each sharing what I felt was incredible alpha about investing.

Because I made the stupid choice to be a ‘hedge fund manager’ after some early entrepreneurial success pre internet, mentorship was scarce in my early career. The public markets are eat what you kill.

Lucky me, I stumbled onto Fred’s blog and I was hooked on the internet at the right time and place.

Inspired by Fred and Brad Feld and the power of social networks I started to share my ideas, thoughts and opinions too. The more I shared, the better I felt my own investing would be. I don’t know much, but I know this to be true.

When I started Stocktwits, inspired by using Twitter, few people believed what I believed about markets and information. It was and continues to be assumed by most that alpha is to be hoarded. I continue to triple down on the opposite.

Back to Bill Gurley and his new book…

I have never met the ‘legendary’ investor Bill Gurley, but he slid into my Twitter DM’s (I hope it was him and not an intern spamming me) to offer me a free copy of his new book.

Hold on…this tweet just in from Bill claiming it was actually him…

I have ONE close encounter with Bill from before I started seed investing as a ‘career’. Way back in early internet 1.0 days, my friend Todd introduced me to Limos.com. I thought it was genius and I invested. It turns out Bill Gurley was also looking at Limos.com but passed on the investment and led a big investment in Uber. Let’s just say Bill and Uber did well and Limos not so well.

I’m with Bill in that my kids and all young people should have the chance to thrive in a career they actually love. I love my career, but wish it had not taken me until my 40’s to get the right mentorship.

I think Bill would mostly agree with my thinking that ‘my alpha is your alpha ‘ - unless you are competing with him on a deal.

I am looking forward to reading the book.

If you want to get the book here is a link.