Sunday, April 19, 2026

19: Ron Conway

The Ronco Principle No one, VC or angel, has invested in more of the top startups than Ron Conway. He knows what happened in every deal in the Valley, half the time because he arranged it. ............ I know of zero instances in which he has behaved badly. It's hard even to imagine. ......... When I first came to Silicon Valley I thought "How lucky that someone so powerful is so benevolent." But gradually I realized it wasn't luck. It was by being benevolent that Ronco became so powerful. All the deals he gets to invest in come to him through referrals. Google did. Facebook did. Twitter was a referral from Evan Williams himself. And the reason so many people refer deals to him is that he's proven himself to be a good guy. ............. Good does not mean being a pushover. I would not want to face an angry Ronco. But if Ron's angry at you, it's because you did something wrong.

Ron is so old school he's Old Testament.

He will smite you in his just wrath, but there's no malice in it. ............... Though plenty of investors are jerks, there is a clear trend among them: the most successful investors are also the most upstanding. ............ The startup world became more transparent and more unpredictable. Both make it harder to seem good without actually being good. ................. The random college kid you talk to today might in a couple years be the CEO of the hottest startup in the Valley. If you can't tell who to be nice to, you have to be nice to everyone. And probably the only people who can manage that are the people who are genuinely good.

mmmm

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