Life’s work

Parable is meant to be a forever vessel: the place I do “outstanding work” for the rest of my career. I aim to make it a heat-seeking missile for future partners engaged in the same pursuit.

The phrase “outstanding work” borrows from Dr. Richard Hamming and his speech “You and Your Research”.

“I’m not talking about ordinary run-of-the-mill research; I’m talking about great research. And for the sake of describing great research I’ll occasionally say Nobel-Prize type of work.”

This speech is my north star. It applies to great VCs just as it applies to great founders. Below, I will reference it in the context of investing.

It is an especially critical time to start a firm investing in early stage technology. Much of humanity’s future rests on the companies that will be started in this AI wave. I believe in technological innovation for humanity – not the other way around. I believe the way to achieve this is through investing in great founders solving “small problems”, as Dr. Hamming puts it.

My daily work revolves around building long-term, trusted relationships with these founders. Three pillars:

(1) Listening at times on topics that appear to be “a fault”...and helping founders “by a change of viewpoint”, turn these faults into their “greatest assets”.

(2) Being the belief backbone of a founder, especially at times when the world doesn’t believe, as “great contributions are rarely done by adding another decimal place. It comes down to an emotional commitment.”

(3) Balancing the founder’s seesaw. Great founders can veer off course... getting distracted, getting tired, and even getting stuck on non-important problems. Sometimes, founders fall victim to ego or succumb to their own stubbornness and are “unwilling to take advantage of what the system has to offer”.

Through Parable, I aspire to partner with as many great founders doing great work as possible. Founders who solve problems that appear small at the outset, but over time become important global phenomena. This is my life’s work.