Good morning 👋
Today we’re breaking down a conversation with Jeff Morris, Jr. (GP @ Chapter One).
I met Jeff a few years ago as part of a reference call. I’ve been lucky to stay in touch, and I’ve meet plenty of others through him.
Jeff is one of the more accomplished fund managers from his 2019 vintage, and he has taken a different approach than most to get there:
He never wanted the “solo GP” label, and he bypassed higher pay for himself in order to create more leverage for the firm by building out a team
He has built a writing flywheel that unlocks opportunity for himself and the fund
He has created a talent pipeline that has attractive some of the smartest venture people I’ve talked to
We talk about all of that in more in today’s piece - let’s get into it.
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Jeff Morris, Jr.
GP @ Chapter One
A lot of other fund managers have leaned into the solo GP movement, but you’re somebody that has bucked that trend and moved away from doing everything solo to now managing a team. Can you talk about the decision to not go the solo GP path and also some of the benefits / challenges of this more scaled approach?
"A lot of solo GPs can make millions on their own, but that wasn’t exciting to me. I wanted to reinvest every dollar into building a team that could cover more geographies, more verticals, and ultimately lead to better financial results."
"One of my earliest hires was a CFO. People thought I was crazy hiring a CFO early, but it made us more institutional from day one. I always tell solo GPs: you’ll never regret hiring a CFO early."
Compared to a lot of the other first-time funds in your vintage, I would say you’ve done a better job that most (maybe all of them) at scaling the fund into an institution. I know there are a lot of steps in order to make this real, but can you talk about the evolution of Chapter One and some actions you took along the way to scale up AUM and start competing with much larger institutions for allocations?
"Fund I was a $10M solo GP vehicle. I started leading pre-seed deals early to prove I could win larger allocations. If you want to scale your fund, you have to show you can win deals."
"Going from Fund I to Fund II meant transitioning from small checks with friends to playing a real co-lead role. That required saying goodbye to some old co-investors and learning how to win deals on my own."
"A big unlock was getting an institutional LP in Fund I. They forced us to get serious about operations, LP reporting, and audits early. That discipline set us up for Fund II and Fund III."
One thing that has stuck out to me about you is your ability to attract underpriced / under-discovered talent (Gaby Goldberg, Doug Dyer, and Alex LaBossiere are just a few examples that I’m thinking of). How do you think about your process for finding these people for they become known names?
"Gabby Goldberg wrote a blog post mapping out the entire Israeli tech ecosystem. That was enough for me to hire her. Proof of work is everything."
"I like hiring people with an intensity to them. A lot of my team were D1 college athletes. They bring the same competitive mindset to investing."
"Hiring is like building a sports team. Sometimes you bring in talented people, and it just doesn’t work. Learning to make quick decisions and move on is crucial."
Aside from the obvious opinions shared through the writing, are there any non-obvious traits you’ve noticed about people that consistently publish their work online that translate to becoming a good investor (curiosity, searching for truth, diminished fear of being “wrong”, etc.)?
"Writing online is like creating a flywheel for yourself. Tom Tunguz has been writing about data for 15 years, and now he owns that category."
"People who share their thoughts publicly tend to be more rigorous, more open to feedback, and more willing to admit when they’re wrong—those are all traits of great investors."
"There’s no substitute for consistency. The best investors write, think, and iterate every day, even when nobody’s reading."
I was listening to another talk you were giving, and you mentioned something about funds staying relevant by offering timeless value propositions. How do you think about timeless value propositions for funds, and do you think any of these are becoming more or less important?
"There’s no such thing as a timeless value proposition unless you’re Sequoia and have been doing this for 40 years. The best firms are constantly upgrading their beliefs and strategies."
"Every 2-3 years, you need to update everything you thought was true. When we started Fund II in 2021, fintech was hot, crypto was exploding, and AI wasn’t even on the radar. Today, that’s flipped."
"Venture firms should think of themselves like software companies. If you’re not upgrading your operating system every few years, you’ll die."
What is the worst part about venture that nobody talks about?
"Groupthink is a real problem. Too many people are just following the consensus rather than developing their own theses."
"The VC-founder relationship has become more transactional. There’s a ‘lazy VC’ meme for a reason, and it affects the whole industry."
"Everyone thinks venture is glamorous, but for emerging managers, it’s mostly legal, fundraising, and operations—not investing. The early years are brutally unsexy."
Are there any other emerging managers that have really impressed you over the past few years?
Mike Dempsey (Compounded) – "One of the best at being thesis-driven."
Kyle Samani (Multicoin) – "Made a bold bet on Solana and stuck with it."
Tom Whiteaker (Ethereal Ventures) – "Runs an ultra-concentrated fund (12-15 positions per fund)."
Sarah Guo (Conviction) – "Perfect timing launching her fund at the AI wave."
More: https://chapterone.com/
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