[HN Gopher] Angel Investors, a Field Guide
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Angel Investors, a Field Guide
Author : azhenley
Score : 77 points
Date : 2025-11-07 17:03 UTC (5 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.jeanyang.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.jeanyang.com)
| ryanmarr wrote:
| Unrelated to article, but I had a call with Jean when she was
| running Akita pre-acquisition, and she was so thorough and
| thoughtful. We didn't end up buying Akita for various reasons,
| but I remember walking away thinking, this person can not fail.
| meagher wrote:
| > Martin and Mike both advised strategic angels instead of
| friends and family to fill out the round, so that's what we did.
|
| How is Kevin Durant (pro basketball player) a strategic angel for
| a monitoring/observability company?
| boomskats wrote:
| Low time burden, low emotional burden, unlikely to interfere or
| micromanage?
| jjmarr wrote:
| He's a _retired_ pro basketball player. He 's since made early
| investments in companies like Hugging Face[1], Coinbase, and
| Robinhood.[2] If you earn millions in your 20s, didn't spend
| it, and have a killer work ethic, you can flip careers to
| professional investor.
|
| Idk why nobody's done a good feature on him.
|
| [1] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/kevin-durant-investment-
| portf...
|
| [2] https://parlemag.com/2025/04/kevin-durant-business-
| ventures/
| harmmonica wrote:
| Not retired (plays for Houston) but doesn't lessen your point
| one bit.
| jjmarr wrote:
| lol that's egg on my face. I just assumed he wouldn't be
| working two full time jobs at once.
|
| That's wild.
| mi_lk wrote:
| A good feature wouldn't call KD a retired NBA player yet :)
| meagher wrote:
| I'm not questioning his investment abilities, just curious
| what he offers that is strategic (advice, dealmaking, etc).
|
| Aside: Saquon Barkley's (pro football player) portfolio is
| insane https://www.readtheprofile.com/p/saquon-barkley-
| investment-p...
| tevon wrote:
| Kevin Hartz is the most desirable angel in the valley IMO. His
| advice and generosity with his time is unparalleled.
| bix6 wrote:
| I like this in general but I think it's sad the friends and
| family who helped you don't get any financial upside.
|
| I also take issue with calling this angel investing:
|
| > I angel invest primarily through my scouting relationship with
| the VC firm Andreesson Horowitz. They give me a budget for
| investing in each fund and I get a fraction of the carry.
| mvkel wrote:
| Full agree. This is... just being a VC. If it's not your own
| money and you're aligning with someone else's thesis, you're
| just a vc with crappier terms
| zipy124 wrote:
| Yeh this is more like being a salesman selling funding
| contracts for a VC firm to startups, a weird dynamic.
| davecyen wrote:
| > if a VC investor is doing their job well, they will make sure
| to keep investing in your company until they have a good amount
| of ownership. This means it is against their incentives to
| introduce you to other investors or do anything else that
| interferes with their ability to buy more shares in your company
| for a good price.
|
| this is only true for larger multi-stage funds who compete with
| each other, not for Seed or Series A-only funds
| pnw wrote:
| Yes, it's completely backwards really. In most successful
| companies, a VC's holdings are likely to decrease over time,
| not increase, as the company raises more money and existing
| investors are diluted. And investors are (in general) motivated
| to introduce you to new later stage investors because it
| increases the value of their holdings, even when diluted.
| tootie wrote:
| I see the crux of this post is that they gave a lot of valuable
| advice to someone who was, at the time, inexperienced. Surely you
| can acquire sage advice without giving up equity by just hiring
| someone with experience. And they'd be onboard full-time instead
| of 15 minutes a quarter. It seems to me the biggest value is the
| obvious one. That they give you money.
|
| And sorry for opening a political can of worms, but I wouldn't
| touch anything that touches Andreesen with a 10 foot pole at this
| point. He's taken a serious heel turn and is openly endorsing
| Fascism.
| sails wrote:
| Good guide.
|
| In the spirit of finding the right person through serendipity:
|
| I'm actively looking for intros to angels who are interested in
| B2B lending. The tariffs have completely disrupted the US SMB
| lending ecosystem and automation is going to have to ramp up
| rapidly to close the gap.
|
| Myself and my team have a AI automation tool, we are revenue
| generating, technical founding team with 2x maths PhDs
|
| Please email me (email in profile) if relevant to someone you
| know
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(page generated 2025-11-07 23:00 UTC)