79: Jonathan Hsu, Co-Founder of Tribe Capital

Square One: Conversations with the Best in Business

This week we went deep on the impact of data science in venture capital. Most investors form their experience based on a combination of anecdote, pattern recognition and experience. And candidly over the majority of time venture capital has been a meaningful asset class, there hasn’t been another way to do it. The last decade has fundamentally changed that - as compute power has significantly increased, the ability to store, harness and analyze data has transformed. Not only has this led to many of the most prominent businesses of our time - e.g. companies likes Facebook and Slack - but it’s also fundamentally opened up a new approach to investing.

I chatted with Jonathan to dissect this phenomena. Tribe has pioneered one of the most novel frameworks in the industry - akin to traditional accounting and financial statements - to unpack early stage technology businesses.

We touched on a number of topics: (1) the myth that product market fit can’t be quantified, (2) the 3 fundamental units of analysis that every early stage company can be dissected against and (3) finding atomic units of value in businesses.