Ben Beverly

Early stage operator and investor. In an ever changing world, some things never change.

[Naval @naval]

Immortality, meaning, and love are readily available - they’re just running around disguised as children.

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

I’ve found life to be much more gratifying when you earn it through struggle and perseverance. Thought provoking as always @SahilBloom

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

This is probably controversial: I think using money to eliminate every minor inconvenience from your life is a negative in the long run.

There's a certain level of inconvenience that's just an important part of the human experience.

The smooth, textureless life is the forgotten life.

Experiencing friction is part of being human. Some of your most memorable life experiences are so memorable precisely because they had friction.

It's why you still laugh about the trip when your bags got lost by the airline and you had to wing it. When your flights got cancelled. When the hotel lost your reservation. When all your plans went awry.

And friction builds tolerance for the inevitable chaos of life.

I know so many people who have obsessively removed friction from their life and now seem to be utterly thrown by the tiniest thing.

They've got private planes, private drivers, and private chefs. People managing and staffing their various houses. All the trappings of a friction-free life. But then get absolutely derailed by the smallest unexpected bump in the road.

As with all things in life, when it comes to reducing friction, the dose makes the poison.

A little bit of friction reduction is good. You reduce your stress. You improve your happiness. A medium bit is maybe even better. But a lot becomes toxic to your life. Not diminishing returns. Negative returns.

Be wary of the blind pursuit of friction elimination.

You may find that the friction was what made your life feel real.

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

@tanyaelisabethh I don’t think it’s hopeless at all trying to figure out who you are. In fact, that’s where the adventure of living life comes from for me. @bgurley has a fantastic book Runnin Down a Dream on this exact topic. Give yourself permission to follow your curiosity and fascination!

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

Amazing reminder to derive satisfaction from the ordinary moments…

[Tanya @tanyaelisabethh]

You wake up
Your husband looks young, the same mustache he used to have over twenty years ago
There are voices in the kitchen
You sit and listen, you can make out one, two… three, three little voices all the way in the kitchen
There is the smell of pancakes in the air, along with some bacon, you are hungry
You look down, your hands, so young
As soon as you walk into the kitchen little voices all cry out your name “mama, mama!!” Hugs filled the air along with sticky syrup hands, but you do not care
By the sink there he stands, your husband
Tall, full head of blonde hair, and you cannot help but hug him. His body feels so strong, filled with youth, you take his smell in, and you stand there taking in the warmth, listening to the children arguing over who gets the last piece of bacon, watching their little feet run across the kitchen floor, memorizing everything, because this ordinary so unimportant Saturday is what you wish you could go back to the most

And then you wake up, life has gone by, you are old, the house is empty, the children are grown, your body aches

And you finally know, you finally understand that at the end of life you will not wish to have had more promotions, to have gone back for one more day of work, to of had more time to clean the house, for one more day of school, for errands, for anything else besides a slow Saturday morning where the air smells like pancakes, and the house is filled with little voices, and you are woken up to the small bodies and the smell of the little heads you love most in the entire world.

An extraordinary life is made up of ordinary days. Of a summer breeze, and small hands, of cold cheeks you kiss in the autumn afternoons, of a steady hand that holds yours, of the wonderful miracle that is having everyone you love, all with you under the same roof.

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

Well said @SahilBloom

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

I’m convinced that you can get pretty far in life by just finishing things. The world is full of half-written books, half-built businesses, and half-kept promises. You stand out by showing up. By closing loops. By doing what you said you’d do. By having the courage to finish.

[Sahil Bloom @SahilBloom]

Major cheat code for life: Build a boring baseline. Go to bed early. Wake up early. Move your body. Eat simple foods. Save money. Read good books. Avoid drama. Be present. Listen intently. Change your mind. The inputs may not look impressive, but the results certainly do.

[Your Best Version @YourPrimePath]

your life is the sum of what you repeatedly do, repeatedly watch, repeatedly eat, repeatedly think and repeatedly tolerate. nothing in your life right now is an accident. it is just the output of your inputs running on autopilot. change the inputs deliberately and the output changes automatically.

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

@aribk24 Interested!

[Stuart Blitz @StuartBlitz]

VC vs. founder

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

@bgurley I was in the audience for your speech at Texas MBA school in 2018. By far one of my highlights!

[Chris Hladczuk @chrishlad]

Excellence is the capacity to take pain.

credit: @FoundersPodcast

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

I really liked Kevin’s take on Scottie

[Kevin Van Valkenburg @KVanValkenburg]

I've been thinking a lot about Scottie's comments this week, and I'm not sure anyone has viewed them the way I did, so if you don't mind, I want to share why they resonated with me:

Don't let your job define who you are.

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

I am super interested in this concept.

[Austen Allred @Austen]

Tomorrow wraps up the first 5 months of my kids attending the school where all of the learning is powered by AI (and no teachers).

I get asked almost every day what the experience is like.

In short: it's truly wild.

Here's what it's like overall:

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

@Beezer232 Good analysis recap. Question re: liquidity issues, VC investment exit horizons are 7-10 years. Why are current liquidity concerns so strongly affecting near-term capital deployment? If you’re bearish on liquidity long-term, you’re in the wrong business.

[∩ @zachpogrob]

"I’m really in pursuit of greatness. I know people don’t usually talk like that, but I want to be one of the greats. I'm inspired by the greats."

Never apologize for being obsessed.

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

@johnarnold @EricNewcomer What’s your take on the VC asset class as a whole? Would you say that any asset class with a flooding of capital experiences the same return erosion or is VC unique?

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

This.

[Alex Cohen @anothercohen]

It's pretty insane that with all the taxes we pay in the US, you still have to spend $1500+ for daycare per kid every month until they turn 5, unless one parent decides to stay at home full time

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

“From the outside, everyone wants in. From the inside, everyone wants out.”

https://t.co/esMufJ5Ujk

[Ben Beverly @beverlyben]

@bradluttrell My top 2 albums this year are the same as yours. So thankful I got to see them both live this fall at ACL. Every conversation I had at that Medium Build show was trying to figure out how big he is going to get. Love your posts, I’ve got a lot of new music to listen to!