As we thought about what would make us both better and different, two core ideas greatly influenced our thinking: First, technical founders are the best people to run technology companies. All of the long-lasting technology companies that we admired — Hewlett-Packard, Intel, Amazon, Apple, Google, Facebook — had been run by their founders. More specifically, the innovator was running the company. Second, it was incredibly difficult for technical founders to learn to become CEOs while building their companies. I was a testament to that. But, most venture capital firms were better designed to replace the founder than to help the founder grow and succeed.

Actual traits of successful founders:

Good at building.
Genuinely interested in the problem.
Very determined.
Talks a lot to users.

We decided that while we would not be able to give a founder CEO all the skills she needed, we would be able to provide the kind of mentorship that would accelerate the learning process. As a result, we decided that all of our general partners would need to be effective mentors for a founder striving to be a CEO.

Successful innovators have CEOs who act as technology evangelists.

This was a huge red flag, because real technologists wear T-shirts and jeans. So we instituted a blanket rule: pass on any company whose founders dressed up for pitch meetings. Maybe we still would have avoided these bad investments if we had taken the time to evaluate each company’s technology in detail. But the team insight — never invest in a tech CEO that wears a suit — got us to the truth a lot faster. The best sales is hidden. There’s nothing wrong with a CEO who can sell, but if he actually looks like a salesman, he’s probably bad at sales and worse at tech.

It's remarkable how many people who've never run any kind of company think they know how to run a tech company better than someone who's run Tesla and SpaceX.

A founder's skill is knowing how to recognize new patterns and to pivot on a dime. At times the pattern is noise, and the vision turns out to be a hallucination.

As a founder, your first job is to get the first things right, because you cannot build a great company on a flawed foundation.

A founder's perspective is unique.

Entrepreneurs are builders, and the lens through which I view Starbucks and the marketplace is somewhat different from what it would be if I were a professionally schooled manager.

One of the hardest choices for technical stars who become leaders is losing touch with the latest in technology.

Now when I consider investing in a startup, I study the founding teams. Technical abilities and complementary skill sets matter, but how well the founders know each other and how well they work together matter just as much. Founders should share a prehistory before they start a company together — otherwise they’re just rolling dice.

We tend to think that the phenomenon of engineers and scientists being at the top of a company is something that started with Bill Gates, Steve Wozniak or Gary Kildall. But this just isn’t the case. Even back in the days when IBM was the single most important computer company, it was possible for one of its engineers to escape and make an impact that disturbed even Big Blue.

Some of the most successful founders start out tentative and lukewarm. Especially the young ones, who are often far from certain they want to run a startup. As they should be, because it's not for everyone, and they don't know yet what they like.

In some ways, entrepreneurs are built to thrive in challenging times and conditions, says BuzzFeed founder Jonah Peretti. “I’ve noticed that times of crisis favor founder-led companies, because they’re headed by people who like improvising. They think about things through first principles and are okay adapting and changing their business.” “During times like this,” he adds, “you have to be totally open to changing everything that you’ve been doing and pursuing opportunities you didn’t know existed.” That plays to the strengths of founders. As does the fact that entrepreneurs are just used to struggling — they often relish the struggle.