Marry like a VC

World over, women who trigger the most envy in other women, married or not, are women who marry well - the likes of Melinda Gates, Michelle Obama, the Murthys, MacKenzie Scott, Priscilla Chan and so on.

These are women who married ordinary men who turned out to be extraordinary after marriage. In other words, these women spotted “talent” and invested early enough to reap a massive payoff from marriage.

They make you wish you were them. Ok, may be only until the divorce, but still.

These women are very different from those who marry already wealthy men. Sure, that takes a different sort of talent (read hotness), but if you don’t have that (the case with most women), tales of ordinary women whose lives transform post marriage, can be inspiring.

So, what sets these women apart from the rest? What does it take to be in a marriage like this?

Well, I think nobody knows. It’s pretty random. I don’t think these women ever optimised for that to begin with, so it’s definitely not something you can hack, if that’s what you are hoping this post can teach you.

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Having observed lots of women who seem to be incredible at “early stage investing” besides being lucky, here are a few common traits (but remember, correlation does not mean causation):

Intuitive & Decisive

These women are decisive. These women don’t spray and pray. They don’t usually date a hundred men before they find “the one” that they want to be with. They are quite picky about who they spend their time with, and will organically choose “the one”. They don’t need checklists; they rely on their intuition, a highly under-rated quality, that is a super-power, and act on it.

Confident

These women have a relatively high self-esteem, which allows them to evaluate people as they are without trying to view the potential partner as “filling some void” in their lives to make them more complete or fulfilled. They are neither reachers nor settlers. They are able to extend this confidence to their partners as well - trusting them to do their best, which is critical for their success.

Long-term thinking

These women are long-term thinking. They evaluate a potential partnership over its entire lifetime - can we build a life together, can I grow old with him, will he be a good husband, a nurturing father and a friend for life? Once they begin investing, they are resilient through the tough times, and if and when their commitment pays off, it compounds, because they have been in it long enough.

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Here’s a thought …

What if every investment firm hired a few women whose partners have “uplevelled” significantly post marriage, would they make for better investors?

In general, I think women would make for fantastic VCs. They have evolved to be better judges of character and more intuitive relative to men. Hence, they might assess a founding team much more thoroughly than their male counterparts.

Think about it - this role would be like the Janardhan Dhurve of the VC world (Sima aunty’s face-reader in Indian matchmaking). I think that would be a fun job.