Generalist vs Specialist

At USV, we have a fairly narrow thesis that sets out what we want to invest in, but all of us work across all of our thesis areas. We see ourselves as generalists not specialists.

In an environment when everything is moving so fast, that can be challenging, as I wrote about on Tuesday.

But there are also great benefits to working this way. As a team, we benefit from working together on everything versus having silos within our partnership and firm.

And as individuals, there is something quite helpful about moving back and forth between domains. It stimulates the mind in ways that going deep and staying deep on one thing cannot.

There are many ways to build a successful investment business. Specializing in a specific domain works well for many firms.

But I personally prefer being a generalist. Being able to meet founders in multiple different sectors back to back to back is really something special. It challenges and opens the mind in a way that really works for me.