Breaking into Venture: An Outsider Turned Venture Capitalist Shares How to Take Risks, Create Power, and Build Life-Changing Wealth

PRINCIPLE 4

TIMING IS (ALMOST) EVERYTHING

Although my mother has been telling me that “timing is everything” my entire life, mostly in the context of analyzing my failed romantic relationships, I didn’t believe it until I jumped headfirst into the world of technology and startups and I watched my first TED Talk. Glued to my laptop in a bustling coworking space in Hong Kong, gripping my noise-canceling headphones as close to my ears as possible, I could feel my perspective on the world shifting as I absorbed Bill Gross’s viral six-and-a-half-minute speech, “The Single Biggest Reason Why Start-Ups Succeed.”¹

As the founder of Idealab, a Pasadena, California–based “startup studio” that has been starting and funding new business ideas since its ...