Quoting Neil Mehta
Apr 6, 2025
Great piece on Neil Mehta that has been doing the rounds this week. Interesting throughout, Green oaks is very focussed on the founder, which is normal at seed but typically has less emphasis at A, B and onwards. There’s nothing unusual in what he’s saying, I think what is unusual is the level of conviction with which they pursue that one thing.
“This is controversial,” Mehta replied, when asked if the Greenoaks machine has identified an ideal type, “but I do believe there’s an archetype for a great founder. And I think that once you see it and learn it, it’s a repeatable process. We’re looking for remarkable intellect, extreme focus, an obsession with the customer, unreasonable determination, especially in the face of adversity, clear and credible ambition, and usually a bit of divergence—people who don’t feel the need to be liked by everybody.”
“A lot of people in our industry say they want these things, but we try to be more systematic and rigorous than anyone else about how we look for it. Every business is the cumulation of a million small decisions made by the founder, and when you look really closely at a company, it’s kind of a prism that shows you much more about them than any conversation does on its own. It’s like, Buffett says you could sell 20 IQ points and still be great; our process would probably allow you to sell more than that. It’s not that complicated. It’s the discipline of only looking for those types of businesses and those types of founders. There is no secret sauce. It’s just the consistency of doing this again and again across thousands of companies.”