The venture capitalist says venture investing is similar to value investing, looking to back what will turn out to be the most superb businesses in the world.
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To the disappointment of our waiter friend, we have one glass of wine each with our mains. But we easily decide to order a dozen Sydney rock oysters to begin with.As the fresh starters are placed between us, Scevak and I commiserate over last names that seem like Teflon to the human brain: no matter how many times you pronounce it for someone, they slip back into a bastardised version within minutes.
Growing up in Newcastle with younger sister Elke, Scevak attended Merewether High School, and is a “proud Novoscastrian”. From an early age, he was entranced by computers. Thanks to his mother’s job as a lecturer at the University of Newcastle, the Scevaks were early users of the internet.Scevak remembers coming home from school and fiddling with an Intel 286, a 16-bit microprocessor and chatting online.
After he arrived in Sydney, Scevak discovered a passion for the intersection between technology and business through regularly reading the, a monthly 300-page tech and entrepreneurship magazine named after the nickname bankers used to describe the prospectus for a company’s IPO. “To me they’re one and the same,” Scevak says of the two investing types. “They’re both the quest for the most beautiful business in the world.”
I agree that venture investors can certainly claim the supernovas that are Google, Microsoft and Amazon, but isn’t that “try a thousand to get one winner” approach the antithesis of the Buffett method? Scevak points out that one of Buffett’s greatest regrets is not appreciating the power of venture-backed technology companies early enough.
“Neither did become substantial businesses,” he says as he orders a glass of Torre Mora “Scalunera” by Etna Bianco. “And the first one is only notable because it was founded with Mike Cannon-Brookes.” It was here that Scevak discovered a lifelong skill. He was, and still is, a prolific networker. Perhaps not in the way one would imagine someone eagerly holding out a business card, but in the methodical, instinctual way one targets the most successful person in the room and pulls knowledge and insight from them.Missed opportunities
Afterpay, Scevak insists, is the kind of business where current customers are committed to spending more and more money, and would have doubled in size again. “At least.”Scevak thinks for a moment before saying: “Everyone gets excited and celebrates when someone sells a company. But I think it’s way more emotionally complicated than that.”“It’s not about money. To me, selling isn’t the goal. Building something that stands the test of time is the goal. That’s what it means.
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