Why We Built a VC Firm Like an Intelligence Agency

When we first started Theory, I asked my partner Tom a simple question: “How do you work?”

That question led us to productionize the decade and a half of investing intuition that had driven his success.

Coming from Palantir, I recognized a parallel immediately: Tom’s investing approach strongly resembled the intelligence workflows that seeded the now $419B market cap software behemoth: collect signals, vet sources, synthesize meaning, prepare to act fast & decisively on the available fact pattern.

I joined Palantir in 2012, helping to launch a nascent health practice and experienced the early days of the forward-deployed motion. From there, I built a new model for a product team (the Slate Guild) that helped bridge the gap between the experience of executive users and the power of Palantir’s backend integrations. Note: This was before the launch of Foundry, which incorporated those learnings into the product. Finally, I charted new AI territory in internal operations for the CIO.

Some of the key lessons I took from this time included:

• How much the semantic layer matters - we constantly assessed the design of data in the context of how we would use it to drive actions.
• The value of meeting our customer where they were (physically and technically) and building for the reality of their day-to-day; this is the heart of the forward-deployed model, where you need to sit side by side to experience their workflow and understand their ergonomics.
• The power of a polished, thoughtful, interactive interface versus a PowerPoint or spreadsheet of data.
• Questioning everything from first principles.

I’ve taken these lessons and woven them into the engine we sought to build here at Theory; we call it our Intelligence Team.

At Theory, our “INTs” mirror the disciplines of intelligence work:

• SIGINT: Building the systems that capture and manage the data we need as inputs.
• HUMINT: Cultivating our human network of experts and operators.
• GTMINT: Accelerating portfolio go-to-market through direct collaboration.
• MINT: Creating the modern marketing playbook.
• TALINT: Connecting the right people to the right companies.

Each has an owner, but they operate as one machine. Every investment we make, every thesis we develop, and every company we support is informed by this flow of intelligence. Our intelligence team is a forward-deployed practice; given our concentrated portfolio, we are able to embed with our companies when needed, albeit without the recognizable black and white track jacket.

Ultimately, our investors and intelligence team sit at the same table, providing each practitioner’s unique lens from deal decisioning to founder support. We often reference the story of the blind men describing the elephant - depending on what part of the elephant you're nearest, you will experience and describe a very different texture. By having everyone share from their vantage point, we create a step-change improvement in our decision-making.

I’m excited to share more details about each of these practices in coming posts.