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Warning – this is a long, self-indulgent kind of post. 

As an investor, I have a fiduciary responsibility to yield the best possible return for Spark’s limited partners.

Making money jazzes up a lot of people.  The desire and ability to translate effort into capital appreciation is important in this business.  It’s what we get paid to do, and it’s what often what distinguishes great investors from nice guys who like thinking about innovation. If I recall Felda Hardymon’s lecture on my last day at HBS, he called this “a sense of equity”.

But I always love it when I sense something more from a new company than the promise of a great financial return.  I love entrepreneurs that strive to do heroic things.

The language of heroism is often lost in the business world.  We hear about scientists and political leaders that seek to conquer disease or eradicate poverty in the world.  We don’t often hear such phrases when describing businesses.  I took a course with Richard Tedlow once that seemed to conclude that the American Business Executive in history and in fiction is simply not seen in this way.  There are very few business leaders that the public would consider heroes.

But heroism does exist in business, and not just in a social-responsibility sort of way.  Companies have always emerged with heroic, world-changing ambitions.  Ebay is all about getting rid of market inefficiencies and letting the little guy compete against big retailers.  Google is all about making information accessible and more useful than ever before.  Apple makes products that consistently delight customers and make us say “wow”.  

And it’s not just the grand vision behind these companies.  It permeates into the motivations and actions of the company’s leaders and employees.  My old boss would often talk about our jobs at Ebay as an “adventure” and the heroism of folks who would go the extra mile to serve a customer.

This wasn’t just lip service.  We really believed that we were doing something important and game-changing at Ebay.  The company’s leaders really hated seeing the inefficiencies in markets like collectibles, used books, payments, long distance calling, etc.  Solving these problems was deeply important to us.  It was an adventure worth heroic effort and sacrifice.

So, I love it when I meet an entrepreneur who wants to solve a problem that is hard, important, and has game-changing implications.  In my book, that is the making of a heroic endeavor.