This TED Talk features venture investor and writer Natalie Frato, recorded live at TED Residency 2019.

I met 273 startup founders last year, and each one was looking for money.

As a tech investor, my goal was to sort through everyone that I met and make a quick determination

about which ones have the potential to make something really big.

But what makes a great founder?

This is a question I ask myself daily.

Some venture capitalists place bets based on a founder's previous background.

Did they go to an Ivy League school?

Have they worked at a blue chip company?

Have they built out a big vision before?

Effectively, how smart is this person?

Other VCs assess a founder's emotional quotient, or EQ.

How well will this person build teams and build rapport across customers and clients?

I have a different methodology to assess startup founders, though, and it's not complicated. I look for signs of one specific trait,

not IQ, not EQ, it's adaptability. How well a person reacts to the inevitability of change and lots of it. That's the single most

important determinant for me. I subscribe to the belief that adaptability itself is a form of

intelligence, and our adaptability quotient, or AQ, is something that can be measured, tested,

and improved. AQ isn't just useful for startup founders, however.

I think it's increasingly important for all of us,

because the world is speeding up.

We know that the rate of technological change is accelerating,

which is forcing our brains to react.

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