The united nations..ahem - I mean our team dinner in London
Jan 09, 2008 in Uncategorized, Entrepreneurship and Venture Capital, Business, London, Pikum
Had a great team dinner tonight with Johannes, Logan, Araz, and Per (who’s joining us officially soon). Represented at the table were Austria, Denmark, Iran, the United States, and South Africa. Great Indian food and good conversation. It’s exciting to see more and more of the key team come together as we keep things moving forward. The place was in Soho - which reminded me very much of soho in NYC (I guess this one came first though?). regardless, I can understand why most of the media companies in London are based in that area.
I like working with a group with such diverse backgrounds. It means that we all have different experiences to draw from and thus will challenge one another’s thinking. As Peter Drucker talks about in “The Effective Executive” - if there’s no disagreement, then the decision hasn’t been thoroughly though through. It is only with differening opinions that one can best think through a problem and come to the best decision. Having different cultures, backgrounds and experiences I believe is a key input to startup success. In fact, there was a study I read about at some point that quantitatively measured the heterogeneity of a team and examined whether homogenous teams (simliar people) or heterogeneous teams (different people) were most effective. It found that the teams composed of the most diverse members were the most succesful in rapidly changing industries… which are usually those where startups are focused!