According to a recent Vice article, Kobe Bryant is out of his depth.
Apparently, Bryant’s much-publicized decision to launch a $100 million venture capital fund with Jeff Stibel places Bryant squarely in the camp of “people … commonly referred to as ‘dumb money’ among people in the tech industry.”
The article went on to define dumb money as “people that an entrepreneur goes to when they can’t find funding from anyone else.”
I don’t know that I totally agree with that definition, and my cursory Google search didn’t yield much data on the frequency with which techies disparage the financial acumen of basketball stars, but I can say one thing with 100% confidence:
If Bryant Stibel is dumb money, I want in on it.
Consider the following:
1. Bryant partnered with a winner. Jeff Stibel is a brain scientist and tech entrepreneur who’s co-founded multiple successful companies and lucratively invested in dozens. He’s brilliant, and I speak from experience. I’ve gotten advice from him on many occasions over the past six years on how to improve as an entrepreneur and CEO, and it’s always paid off.
2. Bryant’s a winner. Bryant is one of the top five most successful basketball players of all time. He mastered both the art and business of basketball over a career spanning 20 years — which is longer than most entrepreneurs last before burning out — and performed at peak levels for the duration.
3. Bryant’s a learner. Bryant rocketed to the top of the NBA in his early 20s, went toe-to-toe with talents and egos as large as his own, made and managed a fortune off of huge celebrity endorsement deals, and survived scandal, setback and injury. As he aged, he changed his game, constantly adjusting and refining his technique — an archetype of the master who never stops studying.
4. Bryant’s a leader. No one should discount the coaching that Bryant could provide for young entrepreneurs: How to put your game face on; how to pick yourself up after a crushing loss and go back out like nothing happened; how to weather the grind of fundraising, hiring, pitching and planning; how to be ruthless in your objectives, yet recognize and groom new talent; how to communicate and cooperate without ever losing sight of the main prize.
5. Bryant’s a business nerd. Founding a venture capital fund wasn’t some spur-of-the-moment decision for Bryant. Billionaire investor Chris Sacca revealed in a podcast that Bryant came to him for advice about the move, and said that Bryant was “obsessive” in his preparations and the furthest thing from a fake. The Wall Street Journal reported that Bryant and Stibel have jointly invested in 15 companies since 2013, with Bryant “contributing a creative, if obsessive [there’s that word again!], flair for details around marketing, branding and storytelling.”
Oh, and Bryant personally designed their company’s new logo. Does this sound like the kind of guy you’d only seek funding from as a last resort?
I’m not a Kobe Bryant fan. A SWAT team performing a midnight raid on my house in search of yellow-and-purple paraphernalia would come up empty. In fact, as a former Row 1 Utah Jazz season ticket holder, I disliked Bryant for years. It wasn’t a lot of fun watching him crush my team night after night. But I always respected his skills, and suspect they’ll translate well in the tech business world.
It makes no sense to brand one group of people — career investors — as smart, and another — everyone else — as dumb. Ultimately, it comes down to the individual. KPCB is considered smart money, but it’s the partner I work with, Randy Komisar, who personifies “smart” to me, because he was a three-time operator prior to becoming a venture capitalist.
In the end, if it’s a question of rolling the dice on an investor with impeccable credentials but no operational experience, versus two guys like Bryant and Stibel, the answer’s a wide open layup. I’ll choose the latter every time.
Perhaps we should revisit what smart and dumb money really mean in tech.
