The condensation is sliding down the side of a glass of $13 mineral water, and Hans B.K. is looking at me with the kind of intense focus usually reserved for surgeons or people trying to find a mistake on a restaurant bill. Hans is a water sommelier. It is a real job, or at least a job that people pay him for, which in this economy is the only definition that matters. He’s currently explaining why this specific bottle, sourced from a 233-meter deep well in the Eifel mountains, has a ‘structural integrity’ that mimics the human spirit. I want to laugh, but I can’t, because my hand still hurts from failing to open a pickle jar this morning. It was one of those embarrassing, primal failures where you’re grunting in the kitchen at 7:03 AM, and the lid doesn’t even budge, and you realize that despite all your ‘grit’ and ‘entrepreneurial spirit,’ you are physically bested by a jar of fermented cucumbers.
This is the state I’m in when I think about Venture Capital. I’m thinking about the way a partner-let’s call him Marcus, because they are always called Marcus or something that sounds like a type of architectural stone-put his hand on my shoulder three weeks ago. We were in a room that smelled faintly of Sandalwood and high-yield debt. He looked me in the eye, gave me that soft, paternalistic squeeze, and said, ‘Look, we really invest in people. And you? You’re exceptional. The team is stellar. It’s just not a fit for us right now.‘
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It is the warmest cold thing you will ever experience. It’s the business equivalent of ‘it’s not you, it’s me,’ except in this version, the ‘me’ has a $303 million fund and the ‘you’ has a burning runway and a team that needs to be paid by the 23rd of the month.
When a VC says they ‘invest in people,’ what they are actually doing is deploying a linguistic safety net. It’s a polite, unfalsifiable cliché that allows them to exit a conversation without ever having to justify their intuition with anything as vulgar as data. If they told you your market was too small, you could argue. You could pull out 43 slides showing that the market for artisanal pet insurance is actually a $33 billion opportunity. If they told you your unit economics were broken, you could show them your plan to reach profitability by Q3. But when they say they aren’t ‘feeling the fit’ despite your ‘greatness as a person,’ there is no counter-argument. You cannot argue with a vibe.
The Strategy: Keeping the Door Cracked
Hans B.K. swirls the water in his glass. He tells me the pH level is 7.3, which is ‘optimal for clarity of thought.’ I think about Marcus. I think about the 13 other founders I know who have heard the exact same script. We are all ‘exceptional people’ who somehow don’t have ‘the right fit.’ It’s a brilliant strategy for the investor. By praising the person, they preserve their reputation as ‘founder-friendly.’ They keep the door cracked just enough so that if you happen to pivot and become the next Stripe, they can claim they always believed in you, they just didn’t like that specific iteration of the product. It’s a bet on the jockey, they say, while they’re actually staring at the horse’s broken leg and checking their watch.
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The danger isn’t that they lie. The danger is that we, as founders, take the lie literally. We go back to the office and tell the team, ‘Hey, they loved us! They just didn’t like the fit.’ We focus on our ‘leadership’ or our ‘culture’ because that’s what was praised, while the actual problem-maybe a churn rate of 13 percent or a CAC that looks like a phone number-goes unaddressed.
We treat the feedback as a character testimonial when it’s actually a polite way of saying the math doesn’t work.
The Cost of Performance Art
I remember a meeting back in 2013… I walked out feeling like a titan. I didn’t realize until six months later, when the company folded, that he hadn’t asked a single question about our distribution model. He didn’t care about the people; he just liked the free entertainment of a desperate man performing ‘passion.’
(Recollection)
This is where the industry’s obsession with ‘storytelling’ becomes a trap. We are told to tell a story, so we do. We weave narratives about our childhoods, our struggles, our 3:00 AM epiphanies. And the VCs listen, nodding, because they want to feel like they are part of a grand human drama rather than just being glorified money-movers. But when the checkbook stays closed, the ‘story’ is the first thing they use to cushion the blow.
To navigate this, you have to become a translator. When they say ‘we invest in people,’ you need to hear ‘I don’t believe your growth is sustainable.’ When they say ‘not a fit,’ you need to hear ‘I don’t think this can return 13x the fund.’ It is a brutal, mechanical translation, but it’s the only way to survive the fog of polite rejection. You have to look past the hand on the shoulder and look at the spreadsheet they aren’t showing you.
The Water and the Game
Hans B.K. is now talking about the ‘aftertaste’ of the water. He says it’s ‘reminiscent of a rainstorm in a forest.’ I’m wondering if he’s ever actually been in a forest, or if he just watches a lot of Calm app videos. I’m also wondering if I should tell him that his water tastes like… well, water. But I don’t. I nod. I play the game. Because in this moment, Hans is the VC and I am the founder, and the social contract requires us both to pretend that this $13 glass of liquid is something more than it is.
[The truth is a commodity that few can afford to give away for free.]
We often find ourselves trapped in these loops of vague validation. We crave the ‘yes,’ but we settle for the ‘you’re great.’ It’s a participation trophy for the startup world. But participation trophies don’t pay for AWS credits. The real work is in stripping away the veneer of the ‘people-first’ philosophy to see the cold, hard logic underneath. This is why many founders are moving toward more rigorous, data-driven preparation. They realize that a ‘great personality’ is a terrible hedge against a bad business model. They start looking for partners who don’t just offer handshakes and compliments, but who offer a structured path to answering the questions that VCs are too polite to ask aloud.
(Praise Layer)
(Logic Core)
I’ve seen how this changes the dynamic. When you walk into a room with a deck that has been stress-tested, where every number ending in 3 is backed by a verifiable reality, the ‘we invest in people’ line starts to disappear. It gets replaced by actual questions. Why is the retention 73% instead of 83%? How do you scale the sales team from 3 to 13? These are the uncomfortable, beautiful questions that actually build companies. To get there, sometimes you need a partner like pitch deck design services to help you peel back the layers of your own narrative until only the steel remains. It’s about moving from being an ‘exceptional person’ to being an exceptional investment. There is a massive, $303 million difference between the two.
The Leverage of the Jar Opener
I think back to my failed pickle jar. My mistake wasn’t a lack of effort. It was a lack of leverage. I was trying to muscle my way through a problem that required a better grip or perhaps a bit of hot water to expand the metal. I was being ‘the person’ instead of solving the mechanical failure of the seal. VCs see this all the time. They see founders trying to muscle through bad markets with ‘passion’ and ‘grit,’ and instead of telling them to get a better grip, they just say, ‘We love your effort.’ It’s the ultimate act of professional cowardice.
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If we actually invested in people, we would tell them they are failing while they still have time to fix it. We would say, ‘I love you, but your customer acquisition strategy is a suicide mission.’ We would say, ‘You’re brilliant, but you’re building a feature, not a company.’ But that requires conflict. That requires a level of honesty that doesn’t fit into a 43-minute coffee meeting at a members-only club.
So instead, we get the hand on the shoulder. We get the mineral water with the ‘aggressive calcium.’
Speaking the Language of Machines
Hans B.K. has finished his glass. He looks satisfied, as if he’s achieved some kind of spiritual breakthrough via hydration. He asks me what I think. I could be honest. I could tell him that I think he’s a brilliant charlatan who has found a way to monetize the most basic necessity of human life through the use of poetic adjectives. I could tell him that the water tastes like a cold pipe.
Instead, I say, ‘It’s a very interesting fit.‘ He beams. He thinks I’ve understood the ‘minerality.’ In reality, I’ve just used his own language against him. I’ve given him the polite, unfalsifiable ‘no.’ It feels hollow, but it’s easy. It’s the path of least resistance.
Phase 1
Leading with Storytelling
Phase 2
Making Math Shout Louder
As I leave the cafe, my hand still throbs slightly. I think about the next pitch I have to give. I’m going to stop lead with my ‘story.’ I’m going to stop trying to be the ‘exceptional person’ that Marcus wants to pat on the head. I’m going to be the founder who makes it impossible for them to talk about ‘fit’ because the numbers are shouting too loud to be ignored.
The lie of ‘investing in people’ is only a lie if you let it be the end of the conversation. If you use it as a signal that you haven’t yet presented a compelling enough case for the machine to care about you, it becomes a tool. It’s a diagnostic. If they are talking about your ‘spirit,’ they aren’t convinced by your ‘spend.’
The $3,003 Watch
It’s beautiful, and it’s precise, and it doesn’t care if I’m a good person. It just keeps time.
That’s what a good business should do. It should keep time, keep pace, and keep growing, regardless of whether the person at the helm is ‘exceptional’ or just someone who finally learned how to use a jar opener. The sun is hitting the pavement at an angle that makes everything look a little too bright, a little too curated. It’s 3:33 PM. Somewhere, a Marcus is putting a hand on a shoulder and telling someone they’re great. I just hope that person is smart enough to go home and check their math anyway.