Speaker City

A local startup, Cesura, looks to be in the process of shutting down. Not all that unusual as startups come and go here in Austin all the time. As they say in the Wire, it’s the nature of the game. What is unusual is this one was run by one of most successful entrepreneurs in town.

Investors always seem to flock to leaders who have had previous success. On the surface, the logic seems sound but is it? As they say with stocks, past performance does not guarantee future returns. There is nothing wrong with looking at someone past work history when allocating capital. What is wrong is to over empathize it.

What were the market conditions? Who else was on the management team? Were their external events that affected the success? It’s a question of causation. Did the leader cause the success on their own? Will they be able to do it again?

So why aren’t these questions asked more? Simple. People like stories. It’s easier and more exciting to attribute the success to a hero rather then to dig deep in mundane details.

A local startup, Cesura, looks to be in the process of shutting down. Not all that unusual as startups come and go here in Austin all the time. As they say in the Wire, it’s the nature of the game. What is unusual is this one was run by one of most successful entrepreneurs in town.

Investors always seem to flock to leaders who have had previous success. On the surface, the logic seems sound but is it? As they say with stocks, past performance does not guarantee future returns. There is nothing wrong with looking at someone past work history when allocating capital. What is wrong is to over empathize it.

What were the market conditions? Who else was on the management team? Were their external events that affected the success? It’s a question of causation. Did the leader cause the success on their own? Will they be able to do it again?

So why aren’t these questions asked more? Simple. People like stories. It’s easier and more exciting to attribute the success to a hero rather then to dig deep in mundane details.