Here's my secret head. Early stage investing is fundamentally about people and systems under

conditions of extreme uncertainty and distress. After a decade of operating as an HR executive

and helping companies from inception to hypergrowth and blitzscaling through eventual exit,

that pattern alignment of playbooks I was using to support organizations, turns

out it was an exact match to growing and supporting a portfolio of organizations. I developed

this thesis that if early stage investing is akin to every HR process that I was the godmother

of in this new world of people and culture. Why aren't there

more people who look like me sitting on the other side of the boardroom table? If you break

down early stage investing, there's some simple buckets. There is sourcing, which is how do you

find the best founders in the world? That is the same as recruiting. We use the same word,

sourcing. How do I source the top talent? To understand

sourcing, you have to understand community. You have to understand network. The third bucket is

servicing. I've spent my entire career enabling people to fulfill their potential. Those buckets,

I was an expert in. So if that's what makes a great investor, why couldn't you give an HR lady a checkbook?

I'm Ted Seides, and this is Capital Allocators.

My guest on today's show is Caitlin Holloway, founding partner at 776, technology-focused venture firm backing great early-stage entrepreneurs that she started with Alexis O'Hanian in 2020.

Alexis was a past guest on the show, and that conversation is replayed in the feed.

Caitlin and I explore the intersection of human capital and venture capital.

We cover her upbringing, work alongside Steve Jobs at Pixar, and turnaround of Reddit with Alexis.

We then turned to the application of her operational experience to venture investing.

We discussed 776's sourcing and underwriting of founders, interviewing approach,

investment selection, and scaling the highly personal approach it takes to add value to

...