Too much money can make you stupid

I recently had the chance to do a leadership keynote with my friend, Charles Thornburgh, CEO of Civitas Learning.

Charles shared this about raising money:

Charles explains why too much money can make you stupid.

Too much money can make you stupid.

I think you can create a cultural temptation to solve problems with resources instead of intelligence, creativity, and innovation.

One of the truisms is: it does not matter how much you raise, it always lasts about the same time.

Think about that for a second.

That’s a little scary.

Every time I raise money there are three things that I think about: you celebrate when you raise money, celebrate when you add customers, and celebrate when you add team members. Two out of three of those things are making more promises.

When you raise money, you are making promises to investors.

When you sign up customers, you are making promises to customers.

When you add talent to your team, you are hopefully expanding your ability to deliver on a bunch of promises you have already made.

I do not know if everyone has that attitude towards raising money.

Raising money is not winning. It is nothing close to winning. Do too much of it, too soon and you build a machine that needs to consume money. It will also drain creativity, innovation, and efficiency. You may have to find some way to get some of that back.

You were a victim of your own success on the funding side.

Originally posted on the Dando Leadership Blog