The VC Field Guide

9The Venture Capital Role

This Part is not meant to be a comprehensive summary of how venture capital works. That would deserve another book. If you have additional questions after these chapters, the best place to ask me is via LinkedIn. https://www.linkedin.com/in/linwilliam/.

After this book is published, I will continue to answer questions about VC and investing there.

The world of venture capital is often depicted in the news and social media as having millions and billions of dollars: multiple financing rounds (Series Seed, A, B, C, D, E, F, etc.), Initial Public Offerings (IPOs), and Merger and Acquisitions (M&A), or as unicorns—billion‐dollar valuations of the latest high‐flying startup destined to be the next Apple, Amazon, Google, Microsoft, or Netflix. And while a unicorn valuation is a relatively rare event, with the news constantly focused on them, it's easy to start viewing venture capital as unicorn spotters: finding the next important company that will change the world. One outcome that stems from venture capital's popularity in the media is that a lot of people are choosing not to work in traditional roles but aiming for venture capital instead. I made that choice myself over ten years ago—going from a traditional post‐undergraduate investment banking role to venture capital—back when we needed to take a pay cut to do that. But I have no regrets about that career change because venture capital is a lot more than finding companies, investing in them, ...