We believe that the single biggest determinant of a company’s success is the quality of its team – and we are relentless in attracting and developing the best Shapers in the world. From founders to early engineers to senior executives, we aim to make Shaper companies the best place for incredible talent to maximize their odds of success, personal growth, and ability to shape the world.

Instead of being a passive investor, Shaper is an active co-founder and hands-on partner to the CEOs we work with. By focusing narrowly on data fragmentation, we build companies in industries that we understand and focus on business models that we’re uniquely good at. We relentlessly partner with CEOs to help them build their early team and solve key puzzles throughout their startup journeys, applying our playbook from past successes. The odds are stacked against startups. We change those odds and increase the probability of home-run success.

We believe there is a virtuous cycle in startups: great founders build great teams, develop great products, foster great customer relationships, have a great impact on the world, and create great financial rewards for investors – and these are all mutually reinforcing. We are playing the long game across each of these stakeholders and believe in finding the win-wins for every stakeholder that we touch.

We’re not a fund. We have a CEO and operate at the pace of a business, not a committee. Funds need to spend effort focused on investor relations with LPs, and too many decisions are based on optics and short-termism. We use personal capital, eliminating investor dynamics to focus solely on long-term, impactful results.