A Better Stance

Posted on January 10, 2025. Filed under: Uncategorized |

Over the past 5 years at Pace I’ve probably interviewed 300 investors for roles at the firm. Attracting great investment talent to our platform is critical. Fortunately, and partly by virtue of constraining the number of seats on our team, we’ve been able to do that repeatedly with a high hit rate. I am deeply energized by conversations with early career investors. Graham Duncan has a framework around compulsion being a key ingredient around which to organize one’s career, and it’s possible that i’m compulsive about seeing potential in people and supporting the realization of it.

We are always opportunistically looking to add to our investment team, but I’ve started to ramp up a more focused effort to do so in the past week or so. To get it right, I find I have to engage in many conversations. As people come into focus who are a bit further away from our immediate orbit, the lazy thing to do is approach early conversations as a sorting function. If you look at this effort like a funnel, it’s easy to invest less energy and care in the top than the bottom.

On my best days, and when I most enjoy recruiting, I combat that lazy approach with a mindset that every single person with whom I speak has something to say, something to offer, and some form of potential…even if Pace is not the right platform to unlock it. Often, within the first 5 minutes of a conversation, I know there will not be an immediate way to work together…but I don’t feel satisfied if I can’t get beyond that assessment to an understanding of where they truly spike. What makes this person unique? What’s the best version of them? Can I see it? Can they see it? Can I help them see it? Every conversation, every interview, is an opportunity to see someone’s potential…it’s more effortful, but ultimately a richer and higher yielding stance than approaching top of funnel as a pure “weighing machine.”