October 19, 2020

#208: Jude Gomila, Founder & CEO of Golden and Investor in 200+ Companies, on Mapping Human Knowledge, Fundraising, Optimizing for Serendipity & Fun, and How to Become a Magnet for Great Opportunities

59 minutes

Jude Gomila is the Founder & CEO of Golden ( https://golden.com/ ) a company on a mission to map out human knowledge and accelerate discovery and learning, and an investor in more than 200 companies including Carta, Gusto, Airtable, Boom, Ginkgo, Benchling, Ironclad, Superhuman, Linear, and Relativity.

Jude was also previously the Founder of Heyzap, a company which was incubated at Y Combinator, raised $8M, and was acquired in Jan. 2016 by RNTS Media for $45M.

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Some of the Topics Covered by Jude Gomila in this Episode

What the mission is of Golden
The initial focus area for Golden when Jude first started it
Some of the constraints Jude found when trying to build a system to map human knowledge
The use cases for Golden
Where Jude's personal interest in the idea of Golden comes from
How the fundraising process was for Jude and Golden and how it compared to raising money in 2009 for Heyzap
What kept Jude going while trying to fundraise in 2009 even though it was an incredibly difficult time to raise capital
Finally getting an investment from Union Square Ventures as well as Naval Ravikant
Choosing between dinner and a call with Naval Ravikant and getting him on Jude's board
How Jude's investors were most helpful for him as he built Heyzap
Incentive structures
Why Jude got started with Angel investing and how extreme frugality helped him invest in more companies
How Jude manages relationships with so many founders as an Angel investor
Making your own luck
How Jude gets access to so many deals as an investor
How to be useful, become a magnet, and attract great investments
Optimizing for serendipity vs. networking
How Jude thinks about applying the Pareto Principle (80/20) in his business
Resource allocation at a startup
The next steps for Golden
Happiness, what it means, how to define it, and how to measure it
Why you should have some level of discomfort in your life
Living at the edge of uncertainty
Optimizing for fun

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By Justin Gordon

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