Tom Hulme: Lessons from a 24x Angel Track Record, 275x on Robinhood & Making Billions on Uber |E1150

Venture capital is like being a founder on antidepressants. You basically have all of the highs, just not as high, all of the lows, just not as low. And so with a portfolio of 20 companies, every day is a rollercoaster. (rollercoaster ride rumbling) There are basically three types of investors. You've got smart investors that know they're smart and they're gonna add value, then you've got passive investors that are gonna stay passive and they're not gonna get in the way. Both of those are absolutely fine. You need to avoid investors that are passive, or sometimes even dumb, but think they're smart and actually gonna kind of interfere.

Ready to go? (upbeat music) Tom, I am so excited for this. Dude, we have been friends for so many years. It's taken, what, seven or eight for me to convince you to do this. But thank you for joining me.

It's a, it's a total pleasure. I feel like you, we've probably been for close to a hundred walks together, and you told me this would be just like another walk.

(laughs)

Now I have a microphone thrust in my face.

Do you know, I really wanna do, like, Carpool Karaoke, but walks around the park. Uh, I think it'd be hard to do. Listen, I think we're all shaped by our childhoods in many ways, and so I wanna start with your childhood. We've chatted about it before, but talk to me a little bit about your childhood and how it shaped a little bit of your mindset today.

Yeah. Look, overall it was a great childhood. I grew up in North London, but I think the thing you, you and I have spoken about before is I had a few years where I was bullied at school. It was utterly miserable. It took all my kind of grit and perseverance to actually make it into school each day. So it taught me that. I think maybe some would say it gave me a little bit of a chip on my shoulder. But it also taught me empathy. I will never assume anything about how someone feels. I will never actually expect others to do something that I wouldn't do myself. So, look, I'm a post-rationalizer. In this industry, most of us are optimists, so I can tell you why it was probably good for me. But it was a really rough few years that actually I wouldn't wish on anyone.

Aha, the thing I found is that I had the same, but actually it means that I just desperately want people to like me, and that can actually lead to me avoiding conflict in a lot of cases, which actually can be quite a negative trait too.

I think so. I think... Look, I've had that feedback before because I want others to be happy. I want to be liked in the same way. But I think over time, I've learned actually the best thing for others, if you truly are empathic towards them, you kind of wanna give them honest, direct feedback, help them grow. And interestingly, they are very grateful for it in the long run.