289: Mike Maples on Finding World-Class Founders

Mike Maples, Jr is a Partner at Floodgate. He has been on the Forbes Midas List since 2010. He is one of the most successful early stage technology investors in the world with previous investments in Twitter, Twitch.tv, and Lyft. In this conversation, we discuss how to build a breakthrough company, why a founder's insight is more important than their original product, a new scientific method for identifying attractive markets, and what patterns Mike has recognized in the best founders over the years. ============================= This episode is brought to you by Koyfin. It is the only software tool that I use when trying to better understand the financial markets. They are a web-based platform that lets you analyze stocks, ETFs, mutual funds and other assets all in one place. I’ve been using it every day to track what's going on in the market and I think if you try it, you will too. Koyfin has a ton of high quality data, powerful functionality and a clean interface. The best part is that it is free. You can sign up at http://www.koyfin.com =============================== Pomp writes a daily letter to over 45,000 investors about business, technology, and finance. He breaks down complex topics into easy to understand language, while sharing opinions on various aspects of each industry. You can subscribe at www.pompletter.com