Tony Kulesa, a biomedical venture capitalist, has a very nice new piece up about how Emergent Ventures works. He overrates me in particular, but the overall account is quite accurate and insightful, and the piece is based on a considerable amount of detailed research. Here is one excerpt:
Distribution: Tyler promotes the opportunity in such a way that the talent level of the application pool is extraordinarily high and the people who apply are uniquely earnest.
Application: Emergent Ventures’ application is laser focused on the quality of the applicant’s ideas, and boils out the noise of credentials, references, and test scores.
Selection: Tyler has relentlessly trained his taste for decades, the way a world class athlete trains for the olympics.
Inspiration: Tyler personally encourages winners to be bolder, creating an ambition flywheel as they in turn inspire future applicants.
Self-recommended! The piece is interesting throughout, and has much social science in it.
