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wanting to build something for many people, as opposed to building some-
thing for oneself to make money, reads very, very differently.
Gutierrez:
What in your career have you been the most proud of?
Ehrenberg:
The ability to recruit and retain great people. I've had fantastic
mentors from whom I've learned a lot about how to build great teams which
has augmented my own experiences. Over time, I've learned not only how
to recruit people but to retain them, and how to build a culture of growth
not just for the sake of the firm's success, but also personal success. This has
required taking a longitudinal view. I'm probably most proud of that.
Gutierrez:
What have you learned from managing teams and helping others
learn to manage teams?
Ehrenberg:
The first thing—and I tell this to my children as well—is that it
has to be about passion. The people I've worked with, whether the quant trad-
ers or the technical startup founders, have myriad things they could be doing.
They are all incredibly capable, very creative, deeply interested, and unques-
tionably interesting. However, they need to feel deeply about what they're
doing or they're not going to be the best at it.
The other thing, notwithstanding their technical brilliance, is that ultimately
what's going to make them successful at scale is people skills. Hence they
shouldn't simply fall back on the things that make them feel comfortable—
namely, coding and product development. They should instead push themselves
to learn how to manage, how to lead, and how to recruit. Learning these skills is
an essential element to becoming a fully formed professional—not to mention
an evolved human being.
Gutierrez:
How did you think about the process of building the right mix of
people for your team after leaving Wall Street to start investing in data-centric
startups?
Ehrenberg:
Not jumping right into it and thinking honestly about my
strengths, weaknesses, and areas of competitive advantage. I went through a
somewhat similar process before going to graduate school. I didn't go straight
from undergraduate school to graduate school. I actually worked for four
years in between. During this time, I spent a lot of time thinking about where
the gaps were in my knowledge, what were the things I cared deeply about,
and what were things I wanted to augment in my knowledge base.
I did very much the same thing in trying to develop profiles of people that
I felt would be great long-term partners who would be complementary to me.
So the first thing I thought about was that, even though I'm technical, I'm not a
PhD. And a lot of the things that I was interested in considering for investment
required a higher level of scientific knowledge to do the fundamental due
diligence on the technology itself. That's what led me to develop a profile for
the so-called “unicorn.” This person would be someone who both is high in
