How To Play to Win in Venture
One of the most common questions we hear from LPs is: How do you actually run Giant?
How do you make decisions? What’s your operating rhythm? What makes you different?
These are questions I’ve thought a lot about. When you look at the enduring venture firms, from Benchmark, to Sequoia, to Founders Fund, their edge isn’t just the brilliance of their individual partners, the sharpness of their thinking, or the strength of their brands. Their competitive advantage is also the everyday micro details on how they operate, and the culture that stems from those choices. At Sequoia, for example, decision-making is collective: they win and lose as a team. Benchmark has compared itself to a jazz band; equal partners improvising, riffing off each other, but taking solos when conviction strikes. Founders Fund leans toward unconventional, combat-sharp minds who ‘row together’ with one collective carry pool, with decentralised decisions and exploration. More junior investors can write smaller checks with limited oversight; larger checks require all the General Partners, including Peter Thiel, to support the investment.
Scaling the Team
The rhythm of Giant has changed since it was just Tommy and me in the first fund over five years ago, akin to a Solo GP(s) effort. Giant now has seven investment professionals today, and we’re fourteen full-time in total - it’s been an evolution. And, undoubtedly, as the firm scales, the model will evolve and be tweaked again. But the throughline from inception and into the future is that we play venture as a team sport. We drive towards one vision together, while also celebrating individual excellence. Like the best rock bands, the bandleader set a clear vision, but everyone expresses themselves as individuals as part of the sound.
As we scaled the team, we created it around core values. Two of our four core values are “compassionate meritocracy” and “stronger together”. These require careful consideration: how do you reward the individual while creating strength as a group? Compassionate meritocracy means the best ideas and people rise to the top, which is essential for maintaining sustained performance. Stronger together speaks to our belief that venture is best played as a team sport. We win and fail as a team.
But like any great team, individual performance is critical. We also advocate for “elite performance” (core value 3), whatever your role at Giant. It is a drive for personal mastery and autonomy, while acknowledging a team's interconnected nature and shared goals. Everyone needs to know the strategy, trust their teammates, and be aligned with the mission. Together, the team inspires and complements the individual and lifts their performance. A well-balanced team allows for things impossible to achieve as an individual.
Rugby as a Blueprint
Roelof Botha, Managing Partner of Sequioa and a South African, often uses rugby to describe the culture. He spoke to Fortune’s Allie Garfunkle, describing the firm not as a “collection of individuals… doing our own thing,” which is the model of many venture firms. Instead, they’re a team: “We make investments together. Our fingerprints are on every decision. We own our success together. We own our failures together.” I love that metaphor. Founders bring their own experience into running a company, and both Tommy and I played rugby together in our youth, captaining our school team just a year apart.
For us, school rugby gave us a language of trust, strategy, and grit. It teaches you the importance of team over self; to lead by example, even when you’re tired or behind on the scoreboard; to balance discipline with instinct and structure with improvisation; to enjoy competition; and to be resilient in setbacks. We still use that shorthand today. In rugby, you also need clear decision-making structures and leadership. There is a manager who picks the personnel, a captain who makes the decisions on the field, a vice-captain, and unit leads. Each owns their area of excellence.
You also need specialists with different strengths - a prop doesn’t play like a winger! But everyone shares values, trusts the system, and plays for the same goal. At Giant, we have intentionally built a team that reflects that philosophy: diverse in skills and experiences, unified in mission. Some of us spike in sourcing. Others in analysis. Others in judgment or winning competitive deals. The blend makes us stronger together.
How We Make Investment Decisions
The team vigorously and urgently discusses every investment at Giant. We run a high-conviction, high-concentration, high-speed strategy underpinned by our investment philosophy, so every decision is critical. We are not spreading our bets and hoping the power law will take care of us, so we work in intense sprints.
We debate, stress-test, disagree, and commit if we move forward. The process can be intense, although it is always respectful. We’ve embedded five Principles of Dealflow and Investment Decisions to ensure the best process, environment, mindset, and behaviour for optimised decision making. We engage in what I call “the enjoyable pursuit of truth.”
For initial investments, every deal must have a champion or a sponsor—someone who pounds the table with a “hell yes.” They lead the charge, own the outcome, and rally the team. Typically, we try to get to a place through our process where most of the investment team is excited about the investment, particularly for larger cheques, where we have more data to analyse. At the end of any Investment Decision meeting, all investors cast a blind vote of 1-10 to concretise their views and clearly understand where everyone stands. We deliberately don’t use the word committee (I have an aversion to the concept of a committee because I don’t believe the formality and hierarchy create the right dynamic for open and vulnerable discussion).
However, we’ve also intentionally allowed a space for non-consensus, particularly for our early-stage practice. Why? The data suggests, at Giant and elsewhere, that the best early-stage investments are non-obvious and non-consensus, and at this stage, intuition and conviction on talent play a greater role. We have a concept of “wild cards”, where a Partner with incredibly high conviction can move forward unilaterally with one investment per fund, even if no one else is supportive. This is a strategic choice. In the words of legendary venture capitalist Bill Gurley, “The big money is in the space where things don’t look good to others.”... and those “others” might include your partnership.
Culture, Not Politics
Building a high-performing and enjoyable investment culture takes intention. Without it, the natural atrophy is towards a culture of politics or quiet rivalries. We’re vigilant about that. We vocally share credit when appropriate. The investors play as one team, one dream across our early and growth fund strategies. We ensure the whole Giant team is incentivised to help our portfolio succeed and help us win in the long term. We have transparency and accountability across the organisation with Department Heads and OKRs, for investors and non-investors alike.
We’re also rigorous about tracking who contributed to each investment because it incentivises performance and collaboration and enables later analysis. Who sourced it? We can’t win what we don’t see. Who championed it? We shouldn’t do it unless someone is vehemently excited. Who helped close it, or cracked the analysis that made the decision clear? We value both the solo runs and the supporting plays. That’s how teams win titles: not just through scorers, but with everyone in formation.
One of the best distillations of team leadership I’ve read is Leading by Sir Michael Moritz of Sequoia and Sir Alex Ferguson of Manchester United fame. Ferguson, one of history's most successful football managers, built a system grounded in high standards, deep trust, long-term thinking, and continuous learning. He maintained one standard but practised individualised management. Cantona, for example, was given space and confidence, with fewer restrictions, because Ferguson knew he thrived on creative freedom. Ferguson also regularly refreshed the squad and invested in youth. After winning the treble in 1999, he immediately started planning the next evolution of the team! He led by example and controlled the tone of the dressing room. Famously, when Beckham, for instance, became increasingly distracted by fame and brand, he was cut. No individual was bigger than the team. That’s what we aspire to at Giant: a culture where the team is bigger than any one player, but where every individual feels seen, empowered, and driven to perform. The endeavour of Giant - to build the world’s premier engine for purpose-driven innovation - is bigger than any individual.
For more insights, check out the latest Giant Ideas podcast episodes: NBA Champion, Rick Fox, on How to Lead Maverick Geniuses like Kobe and Shaq and Win; Nasty Gal founder Sophia Amoruso on the post-Girlboss era, and a16z General Partner, Katherine Boyle on American Dynamism and the Rise of Defense Tech.