Ben Feldman

I've loved sitting in all three because each one comes with its own unfair advantages and its own blind spots. As a builder, I knew my problem space incredibly deeply. But the same depth that made me proud of what I'd built could also keep me a little too focused on what was right in front of me, and less aware of what was happening around me. As an advisor, I had the opposite: breadth. I got to see how dozens of leadership teams were handling the day's hardest problems, which enabled me to spot patterns and trends I never could have seen from down in the trenches. That also meant I was never really in the trenches. As an investor, I get a bit of both. I'm working directly inside our companies, but I'm also part of our ongoing work evaluating new investments, so I'm seeing what else is out there, what's working for other teams, and what isn't. Knowing a lot of businesses isn't the same as knowing any one of them deeply, though. So when we form a new partnership with a company, I lean on the experts already inside it, the people who understand the product, the customers, and the hard-won lessons better than I do, to get up to speed as fast as possible.

I usually embed with our portfolio companies right after a deal closes. My job is to make sure the right building blocks are in place across product, technology, and R&D, with AI now running through all three, so the company can innovate and grow sustainably for years. Where pieces are missing, I work with the team to start investing in the people, tools, and technology we need, and we build a plan for where to invest further over time.

I don't pretend to know what tomorrow brings. The pace at which GenAI is advancing, and the rate of change that comes with it, are both remarkable. But I try to stay focused on the problems we can solve and the opportunities we can go after, not on technology for its own sake. We've seen other hype cycles where the technology was flashy but rarely a genuinely fit-for-purpose choice. It was just flashy. That, to me, is the difference. No single piece of technology is a cure-all, but we've already seen plenty of ways GenAI helps teams move faster, work more effectively, and support customers in new ways.

Because I've actually been to a Super Bowl where my team won. Super Bowl LIX: Eagles 40, Chiefs 22. But don't ask about my record at Phillies World Series games…

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