To achieve true freedom, one should calculate the "last dollar" they will ever need to spend. Once this number is reached, decision-making can shift away from financial maximization. This framework helps entrepreneurs avoid trading their best hours for "bad dollars"—money that provides zero additional life utility.

Given private equity's finite 5-7 year investment hold period, the 80/20 principle is an essential framework. It forces leadership to ruthlessly prioritize by identifying and doubling down on the 20% of customers, markets, leads, or team members that drive 80% of the results.

At IVP, even when a partner is passionate about a deal, the firm encourages them to 'sleep on it' after a debate. This deliberate pause allows the partner to process the team's feedback without pressure, often leading to a more rational assessment of their own conviction and preventing investments driven by emotion rather than collective wisdom.

Early in your career, output is key. Past a certain threshold of success, however, you are compensated for the quality of your judgment, not the quantity of your work. Your highest leverage activity becomes making correct bets, which requires reorienting your life to maximize decision-making quality.

A simple framework to evaluate a VC's skill is the four 'D's'. They need proprietary Deal Flow, the ability to make good Decisions (initial investment), the conviction to Double Down on winners, and the discipline to generate Distributions (returns) for LPs.

Don't chase every deal. Like a spearfisherman, anchor in a strategic area and wait patiently for the 'big fish'—a once-in-a-decade opportunity—then act decisively. This requires years of preparation and the discipline to let smaller opportunities pass by, focusing only on transformative deals.

In venture capital, the greatest danger isn't investing at high valuations during a boom; it's ceasing to invest during a bust. The psychological pressure to stop when markets are negative is immense, but the best VCs maintain a disciplined, mechanical pace of investment to ensure they are active at the bottom.

New VCs often rush to make deals to prove themselves, but this leads to a portfolio of mediocre companies. These investments consume a disproportionate amount of time and energy, leaving no bandwidth to pursue the truly exceptional, career-making opportunities that may appear later.

Resist the common trend of chasing popular deals. Instead, invest years in deeply understanding a specific, narrow sector. This specialized expertise allows you to make smarter investment decisions, add unique value to companies, and potentially secure better deal pricing when opportunities eventually arise.