3/52: The Hermès Herd
#CapitalAtRisk
The 2010s was the decade of the Entrepreneur.
The 2020s will be the decade of the Investor.
“Every time you make the hard, correct decision you become a bit more courageous, and every time you make the easy, wrong decision you become a bit more cowardly”
Ben Horowitz
The Hermès Herd
During the 2000s, I worked in big banks and IT firms in the City of London with thousands, sometimes tens of thousands, of employees. Equipped with a Computer Science degree1 and a bit of common sense I was a lofty IT Consultant. I broke things when they were fixed, and fixed things when they were broken. It felt good for a while.
There were loads of people but no one really stood out. That was the point. I used to call them The Drones.
That’s not meant to be mean because I didn’t either—standing out was a stupid thing to do in that world. Fitting in was the way to get ahead. You weren’t rewarded for originality; you were rewarded for predictability. Come to work just before the boss, leave just after the boss, nod in the right meetings, dress the part. Rocking the boat got you nowhere.
A friend said, “You’ll never get anywhere in the City unless you have a Hermès tie, everyone has a Hermès tie2”.
Then, in 2010, I started working at a tiny investment firm, Pembridge. Everything was different.
Shorts & flip-flops
I’d gone from being one of tens of thousands to being in a firm that had four Partners, me, and one other member of staff.
It was different to say the least:
One day, fairly soon after I started, one of the partners came into work in shorts & flip-flops (it would’ve been late February).
Arguments about decisions were shouted across the office with lots of f-ing this, f-ing that.
One Partner told another to “Fuck right off” and slammed the phone down. They could see I was a bit surprised and they said, “Ah yeah, you haven’t worked in a small company before. It’ll be alright, I’ll ring him back later”.
Another (the one who was told to ‘fuck off’ actually) wore those strange (awful) ‘five fingers’ trainers with separate toes.
That partner, the one with the finger trainers, called me from the bath more than once.
A lot of went on, not just the phoning-from-the-bath thing, that would have been unthinkable at a big corporate. But instead of seeing chaos, I saw something else: people who focused on results, not appearances. I knew I had found my tribe3.
Write a script for yourself
That shift changed how I thought about work and what it takes to be successful, especially when it came to investing4. The professional world loves to impose expectations: work means sitting at a desk for long hours, doing what everyone else is doing. But did any of that actually increase my chances of being successful? Was it just theatre?
Investing, particularly as an angel, is about judgment, relationships, and patience—not bureaucracy, dress codes, or office politics. The most effective investors I know aren’t the ones following the script. They’re the ones writing their own.
I do it, myyyyyyy waaaaaaay
Of course to be successful it is all-consuming. The long way is the shortcut.
To be the best investor probably takes decades of reading, staring out the window, and thinking on long walks and runs.
All that to be ready to pounce, maybe just once or twice a year.
So I do things my way. And I’d encourage you to do things your way. I doubt that means going to the shops for a Hermès tie.
Are you playing the same game the same way as others? Are you really going to get the best results that way?
What would it mean to do things your way?
Remember; Founders Focus
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In other news
🇨🇭 I’m in Switzerland again for Guy Spier’s VALUEx conference next week. I’ll be flying over to Zurich on Monday 3rd then back home on Friday 7th February. If you’re in Zurich or Klosters please his reply and we’ll get coffee.
More from me?
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Important: None of these posts are investment advice. If you are thinking about investing you should seek the advice of a suitably qualified independent advisor.
#CapitalAtRisk
I took a break from work and did this from 2003—2006 at Durham University.
Except me.
This is also the time I saw Chris Sacca in his cowboy shirt on TWiST #291 for the first time.
Those four Partners were infinitely more successful than anyone I’d met in the big co’s.