Invest in Lines, Not Dots
Suster's most famous mental model: every founder-investor interaction is a dot, and investors gain conviction from the line those dots draw over time. Argues founders should meet investors months before raising and show progress against stated plans.
Ban Warm Introductions!
Johnson's much-debated argument that the warm-intro requirement is not just exclusionary but bad investing: it selects for network proximity over merit, and firms serious about returns should build open top-of-funnel instead.
Is It Fair To Tell Founders 'Just Execute And You'll Be Fine' When We Know It's Not A Level Playing Field?
A sitting VC interrogates his own industry's meritocracy narrative: standard fundraising advice assumes network access and pattern-matching benefits that underrepresented founders don't get, and he discusses what honest advice looks like instead.
Who Gets Funded to Build in Africa? Lessons from a $7.3M Nigerian Seed Round
Uses a $7.3M seed round raised by an American founder for a Nigerian-market app to examine who global VC actually trusts to build in Africa, and what local founders face by comparison.