Thursday, January 9, 2014
The Founder Hounder
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“Girls here wear North Face fleeces at dinner,” Vivian shouted at the dashboard microphone of her Mini Cooper. She pulled forward, having failed her 4th attempt at parallel parking into a minivan-sized spot on California St. in San Francisco.
“Shut up,” Sarah responded in disbelief from her Midtown Manhattan office.
“At the table,” Vivian clarified.
“Shut up.” Sarah echoed.
“Yeah, and these tech guys: they like smart girls,” Vivian elaborated, finally getting a decent approach angle on the parking spot. “They want girls who converse and will eat the occasional rich, delicious meal with them.”
Sarah’s disbelief began to turn to irritation. “Vivian, what you’re saying right now doesn’t even make sense.”
“SF guys,” Vivian continued, ignoring her friend, “They aren’t guys trying to work at hedge funds, Sarah.” Vivian bumped the car behind her. She slowed her pace for added effect: “…they’re the LP’s.”
Sarah literally couldn’t move from her Aeron chair on 6th avenue. She took a moment to digest all the information her friend had just relayed to her and attempted to play it back:
“Okay. So a girl like me, who has to go to SoulCycle 6x a week to even hope to attract some fucking Associate in New York, could be the one picking and choosing from any number of potential multi-millionaires in San Fran?”
“Exactly,” said Vivian.
“This is nuts, Vivian,” Sarah mumbled. “This is crazy…” she repeated. Slowly, Sarah’s tone changed from skepticism to one of hope and possibility. “This is…” she searched.
Vivian pulled forward a few feet, leaving her car at a 30 degree angle, tires facing into the downhill street and helped out:
“This is what we’ve been training for our entire lives.”
//
There is a new model being defined for females in San Francisco, and unlike any of the perpetually pivoting projects San Francisco calls businesses, a female of this breed is extremely focused, with well-defined goals and objectives. Her plan is simple: aggressively and exclusively seek out, seduce, and go home with the creators of technology startups. In SoMa they call her: The Founder Hounder.
But The Founder Hounder is more than any regular groupie and a far cry from the PR / investor relations girl of New York. She is well-educated, with a background in finance or strategy consulting. And it is this deep analytical training that has enabled her to ruthlessly assess herself and optimize her outcome.
“I looked at my options,” said Jennifer, a Harvard graduate and pioneering Founder Hounder. ‘VP of Corporate Development’ just didn’t sound as good as ‘Girlfriend of That Dropbox Dude.’”
As it turns out, The Founder Hounder may have the best business model in Silicon Valley. Unlike entrepreneurs, who end up tying all their risk to one venture, or VC’s who have to make numerous large bets in hopes of getting a handful of big hits, The Founder Hounder assumes zero risk and makes absolutely no commitments. She is able to do the deepest kind of diligence on a number of potential investments and, after she kicks the tires, cherry-pick a bet on her own terms.
Tim Draper, of Venture Capital firm Draper Fisher Jurvetson, made the following observation of the Founder Hounder: “She has, easily, the most attractive risk-adjusted return profile in the entire early stage ecosystem.”
These young ladies don’t talk about Brazilian waxes or how much celery they don’t eat, they casually use phrases like “anti-dilution” and “restricted stock.”
“One of the first things she asked me was: what’s your monthly burn?” noted Sumeet, a young UMich grad with a “working prototype.”
The Founder Hounder has caused a dramatic role reversal. Entrepreneurs are famous for treating girls like distractions, chores they’d rather be able to avoid all together, like eating and sleeping. But good Founder Hounders have become jewels, modern day muses. They set such high return thresholds that they drive those they date to outperform even their most ambitious projections. Inspired by stories like that of Mark Zuckerberg’s wedding, they scoff at tiny multiples like 30x or 40x. Staying true to the Silicon Valley blueprint for business building, one deluded sense of self worth fuels the other.
And, like the entrepreneurs they attack, Founder Hounders have all read Steve Jobs’ biography and engineered their own deliberate personal quirk. Except theirs is not a T-Shirt stitched into a Blazer or distinct daily sets of argyle shoelaces. Their twist: abstinence.
Jeff, founder of an AirBnB meets Snapchat for seniors, related his experience.
“The first time I met Claire I was like: ok, this girl is an 8.5 and I haven’t seen anything above a 6 in months. And after 3 dates: nothing. We’ve gone hiking, hit Napa, I’ve casually exposed my eight pack. I can’t do anything to impress her. Then I hear about the other guys she’s dated, and it clicks.
So I start rattling off metrics: user growth, repeat visitors, viral coefficients. She just sits there, playing with her iPhone, huffing occasionally, unimpressed. I even open up Google Analytics on my iPad at dinner and show her our average 15 minute time on site (first time visitors). But NOTHING. I couldn’t pry the Lululemon’s off of her.”
“After 3 weeks, I’m thinking: what do I have to do to fuck this bitch? IPO?”
We were able to catch Claire after Pilates class in the Marina. Her cold, hard response:
“Yes.”
January 9th, 2014 at 3:27 pm
welcome back. pitch-perfect timing.
looking forward to the comment battles, grammar tutorials, etc. almost as much as the actual posts.
January 9th, 2014 at 3:58 pm
A sense of relief washed over me upon receiving notification of a new post. What is that, bone?
Welcome back LSO. Welcome back.
January 9th, 2014 at 6:23 pm
Where you been? Preparing for an IPO?
January 9th, 2014 at 7:32 pm
…was waiting for someone to capture how bubbly SF has become recently, perfect.
January 9th, 2014 at 8:33 pm
Fuck me. Never thought I’d see this thing up and running again.
January 9th, 2014 at 10:16 pm
bottles at marquee to celebrate anyone?
January 10th, 2014 at 8:59 am
LSO calls the top. Short tech now.
January 10th, 2014 at 9:24 am
I started reading this website when I was a freshman in college. Now an associate in PE. We’ve come full circle since the Bonus Season girls.
January 10th, 2014 at 5:53 pm
5.5 years later, you suddenly reemerge, and in rare form at that. The heavens rejoice.
January 10th, 2014 at 6:10 pm
Brilliant. Welcome back
January 10th, 2014 at 6:58 pm
Really the first post?!? unsubscribe thanks, but no thanks
January 10th, 2014 at 9:44 pm
Welcome back LSO, welcome back –
Some associate
January 11th, 2014 at 12:05 am
welcome back. great writing, as always. looking forward to the next one, but obviously not holding my breath 😀
January 11th, 2014 at 11:31 am
Haha, he’s back! Love you, man.
January 11th, 2014 at 5:34 pm
Thank you for coming back LSO!
January 12th, 2014 at 8:15 am
Oh jeez. Sexist and stupid. There are tons of girls in the bay over a 6, though if your definition of hot is emaciated and vapid then you should have stayed in NYC.
January 12th, 2014 at 8:19 am
And, as somebody who had to deal with the horrors of the CFA program, the Chartered Financial Banalyst post was spot on..
January 12th, 2014 at 10:38 am
Time to buy puts on the Nasdaq…
January 12th, 2014 at 12:16 pm
So happy you’re back, my friend. It’s been far too long. Started reading this in college and now an associate in PE – but the glory is so similar.
January 12th, 2014 at 8:20 pm
The glorious resurgence of LSO we’ve all been waiting for.
Fire it up!
January 12th, 2014 at 8:27 pm
we missed you!
January 12th, 2014 at 10:44 pm
says the fat chick
January 13th, 2014 at 12:10 am
welcome back LSO! time hasn’t had any impact on your writing – hilarious post! it’s the return of a legend.
January 13th, 2014 at 2:08 pm
lol jredd totally not getting the point of the post.
January 13th, 2014 at 2:09 pm
Unreal. So excited for the resurgence of LSO! I felt so Piper Jaffrayish constantly re-reading old posts.
January 14th, 2014 at 5:30 pm
Unimpressive. You were better off letting sleeping dogs lie.
It’s been 7 years, it time to move on buddy.
January 15th, 2014 at 2:33 am
AWWWW YEEEEE
January 15th, 2014 at 4:30 pm
jredd Said:
January 12th, 2014 at 8:15 am
Oh jeez. Sexist and stupid. There are tons of girls in the bay over a 6, though if your definition of “hot” is emaciated and vapid then you should have stayed in NYC.
49ers..girls who are 4s but think they’re 9s.
January 15th, 2014 at 11:18 pm
having lived in both nyc and sf for 5 years each, i can absolutely say there are very few girls over a 6 in sf. its probably the worst place to be a single dude in america from supply demand perspective. tons of rich nerds fighting over slim pickings.
January 16th, 2014 at 1:07 pm
This is just wonderful.
Welcome back LSO
January 17th, 2014 at 8:17 am
You know the hard times are over when the LSO returns
January 18th, 2014 at 11:25 am
Welcome back buddy. We missed you.
January 26th, 2014 at 9:05 pm
Welcome back guys! Glad you’re writing again
January 30th, 2014 at 9:37 am
For 5 years I have kept LSO saved in My Favourites for whenever I needed a dose of Wall St arrogance and an insight into a time since passed. Even bought the book only last year.
Welcome back – this has got to be a leading indicator that all is good again in the US.
January 31st, 2014 at 6:46 pm
Looked upon the same posts and comments from time to time to make sure that not all was lost – thank s for coming back…
February 12th, 2014 at 7:57 am
Yes! I’ve been waiting for LSO to come back ever since my bonus got pulled in ’08. Time to break out the adderall and black card.
February 12th, 2014 at 8:27 am
First time visitor. You had me at the argyle.
February 15th, 2014 at 10:51 am
If the devil possessed a man to write a blog of which the sole purpose was to spread evil and hateful thoughts, I would bet money that the possessed man were you. I am no bible-thumper. It takes a lot for me to say something like that. Why do you write such evil things?
February 17th, 2014 at 3:11 pm
oh dear, looks like a founder hounder (anonwoman) is fearing that the top has been called by the great LSO. Time to buy me some puts on the NASDAQ.
February 17th, 2014 at 4:33 pm
Ok … now tell me about the male equivalent of a Founder Hounder.
February 18th, 2014 at 5:16 pm
What an amazing turn of events. I used to read LSO at 2am in 1585 broadway and I’m now a VC in the Marina. Fucking spot on, welcome back.
February 19th, 2014 at 5:00 pm
I was just but an associate when I started to read your site. Now I am a VP. Time flies. Welcome back , sir.
February 21st, 2014 at 5:49 am
Welcome back, LSO. I’ll read your posts with pleasure as I buy puts on #allthingstech
February 25th, 2014 at 3:35 am
>>> THIS !! <<<
– Bookmarked –
Now passing this furiously around like an ill-fitting Lululemon.
February 28th, 2014 at 11:46 am
Great stuff, welcome back. Read LSO as an IB analyst / PE Associate and now as a VC. If you’re as prescient as the first time around, I estimate we have about 3.5 good years left…
March 5th, 2014 at 2:59 pm
Been 5.5 years of looking at the book mark. Welcome back! Rememeber the Titans!
April 9th, 2014 at 7:00 am
and now we’re all 30…
April 29th, 2014 at 12:01 am
Guess how many fucks hounders give? None. They don’t read the writings of the small penises with big hurt egos.
Just admit that your life sucks and you are not getting laid – may be you will get some then, out of pity. Hey, it works for Seth Rogan. He is much clever than you, but you can try to polish your act.
I have issues with bluntly disrespectful attitudes that breed hatred towards any population group, but especially women. Because such machismo in turn produces the likes of CEO of Radium One (now ousted). Would one say that his hounder ex-gf got what she deserved? I imagine some excited readers here would approve Chahal’s actions.
Women are your mothers, sisters, your first childhood crushes, your future wives.
Oh, and my favorite one – half of your children will be daughters.
But of course your daughters will be different. Because you and your beautiful wife will work so hard to raise your trust fund baby girl properly. She will be so smart and accomplished: avid reader, she will graduate from Harvard summa cum laude and will Teach for America in Oakland. And the only slight pet peeves of her will be her expensive shoes, yoga pants and foreign trips…
But she will be such an angel… Joy to parents and the world. And of course such a treasure would only settle for True Prince Charming… you follow the idea.
There is only one fast hard rule in this world, fellas – you get what you give.
Treat women like shit, and only shit will be floating your way.
Tim Draper is happily married for 30+ years to a girl who worked as a PR coordinator at Macys.
Was she the ultimate hounder of the 80’s?
I’ll ask him about the authenticity of the statement assigned to him in the post at the upcoming DU event. I’m sure the quote is pure horseshit, just like the author of the above blogpost.
May 6th, 2014 at 5:55 pm
This is great, welcome back LSO, I was a first year analyst in 2008 when you stopped writing and now i’m VP! World didn’t end after all!!!
May 14th, 2014 at 5:50 am
just found out you were posting again. i did my pre-mba sell side and buy side in NY. MBA classmates are mostly in silicon valley now so interesting to read these new posts.