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perseusmandate | 5 years ago
Ex-Google was a meaningful distinction 15 years ago. Today it does not remotely entitle you to being funded.
Many VCs today recognize that Google is an extremely bureaucratic place that does not resemble a startup and I know more than a few who view Google experience as a negative signal.
m0zg|5 years ago
And that would be accurate, to a large extent. But it's also one of the few remaining _technically competent_ places that does not hire people who can't code.
That is why I qualified my statement by saying that the prospective founder would be _technically_ capable, not capable in general. If anything, they could be less organizationally capable, but that can be resolved with the right co-founder.
To put it into more concrete terms: say you had a million dollars and would want to allocate it towards a bet in order to potentially turn it into a lot more. Who would _you_ pick, someone with tech aptitude credentials (which a substantial stint at Google as an engineer all but guarantees), or someone with no discernible credentials?
Note that I'm not even mentioning race here. Race/gender/sexual orientation is 100% irrelevant in this calculation unless it actually confers an increased chance of turning $1M into $10M. E.g. as an investor I'd probably prefer a gay person to lead a gay dating service, just for the domain expertise. I'd still require that they have technical and/or business chops, however.