I’ve written before about hiring for cultural fit, and about the importance of prioritizing cultural fit over competence when hiring at startups. I started thinking about it again when I saw this Dilbert comic, because it pokes fun at the culture of startups and their propensity only to hire people who fit into them. But what are we talking about when we talk about cultural fit, anyway? You’re probably familiar with some of the stereotypes around startup culture (free massages and dry cleaning, craft beer, cool art on the walls and dogs at the office, pulling all-nighters to ship on time) and the kinds of people who work at startups (according to Dilbert, “self-conscious hipster” types with “an earring and headphones.”) Stereotypes like these give you a picture of what startup culture might look like to an outsider, but they don’t reflect the intrinsic values that define startup cultures.

VCs love to say things like “we are entrepreneur friendly.” It’s trendy, catchy, and looks good on a blog post. But, as I’ve said in my post Your Words Should Match Your Actions, one can “damage their reputations by having their words not match up with their actions.” Now – this post isn’t about responding to emails. Nor am I trying to be preachy. I’m not trying to explain a new behavior. Rather, I’m making an observation about something I’ve experienced – both as an entrepreneur and investor – since my first angel investment in 1994.

I’ve been thinking a lot about human – computer love recently given my obsession with Battlestar Galactica. It evolved from “can Cylons have feelings?” to “can Cylons and humans love each other?” to “what changes when Cylons become mortal?” So – when I saw the trailer for Her, I thought – yup – this is our future, and we’d better start getting our minds around it. I look forward to Siri starting to sound like Samantha.

Though it may seem as if politicians in Washington, D.C. have a hard time agreeing on anything, those on both sides of the aisle seem increasingly keen to support entrepreneurs and their communities. Some recent examples include the passage of legislation expanding crowdfunding under the JOBS Act and meetings similar to one hosted last month by the Global Accelerator Network in which we worked with the Small Business Administration to gather 16 accelerators to demo their programs for the White House and SBA funders.

Chris Dixon had an important post over the weekend title The Idea Maze. He starts off with a very strong juxtaposition of thoughts around the importance of “the idea” to a startup. Ideas_Matter: The pop culture view of startups is that they’re all about coming up with a great product idea. ~Ideas_Matter: In response to this pop culture misconception, it has become popular in the startup community to say things like “execution is everything” and “ideas don’t matter”. Ideas_Matter’: But the reality is that ideas do matter, just not in the narrow sense in which startup ideas are popularly defined. 

I adore Jeremy Bloom. He co-founded Integrate, which we are investors in. I’ve interviewed him for the Entrepreneurs Unplugged series I do at CU Boulder. We’ve been part of a few events together. He’s got an enormous heart, soul, and brain. A while ago he created a foundation called Wish of a Lifetime. It’s a magnificent example of what I call “Random Acts of Kindness” and is a deep part of my value system.

Put this in the protip category. When you create a calendar event and invite someone to it, make it useful. For example “Board Meeting” is not helpful. But “BigDoor Board Meeting” is very helpful. Don’t invite me to a meeting that says “Meeting with Brad Feld.” Make it something like “Smith / Feld – UX for BigDoor” meeting. For bonus points, use the “Where” field. Put the full address in it. If it says “Foundry Group – 1050 Walnut Street, Suite 210, Boulder, CO 80302” your iPhone or Android phone can automatically map the directions. If it just says “Foundry” well – that’s not really very helpful. Or put your phone number instead of “Phone”. Or your Skype handle instead of “Skype”.

I’m intensely proud of both the amazing startup community in Boulder as well as the many significant companies that have been – and are being – created in the little town of 100,000 people I call home. I regularly talk about the ones we’ve invested in through Foundry Group, but this only covers a part of the awesomeness that is going on here as Foundry Group has a very tight thematic focus.

Fred Wilson had a post yesterday titled Mentor/Investor Whiplash. His recommendations for dealing with it can be summarized as “collect all the data, think about it, discount what investors have to say, and ultimately listen to what the market is telling you over what advisors / investors tell you.” I then read through the comments on the post and was bummed out. Many missed the point of what I thought Fred was trying to say. Then I reread the post more carefully and noticed how he framed the issue. The paragraph that caught my attention was: