Imagine sitting around a table with some of Silicon Valley’s most powerful players — the CEO of OpenAI, a billionaire venture capitalist, the founder of a defense-tech giant.
Someone at the table is lying. Your job is to figure out who.
That’s the premise behind the party game that’s become a favorite pastime among the tech elite. In fact, a venture firm recently turned the game into a filmed competition.
Funny enough, it reminds me of startup investing. Because whether you’re playing a game or evaluating early-stage companies, success often comes down to the same thing…
Knowing how to spot what others miss.
Silicon Valley Goes Undercover
The game is called “Mafia.” Here’s what it looks like:
And here’s how you play:
A handful of players are secretly assigned to be in the mafia. Everyone else is an ordinary citizen.
The citizens need to identify the mafia members before these members are eliminated from the game. The mafia, meanwhile, tries to blend in and avoid detection.
Players study one another’s behavior, look for inconsistencies, and try to separate truth from fiction.
Recently, Founders Fund — the venture-capital firm founded by billionaire investor Peter Thiel — decided to bring the game to a wider audience.
The firm launched “Mafia the Game,” a video series featuring some of tech’s most recognizable names. Participants have included OpenAI CEO Sam Altman, Anduril founder Palmer Luckey, longevity entrepreneur Bryan Johnson, and other Silicon Valley heavyweights.
Episodes are filmed at San Francisco’s historic Tosca Cafe, where players spend hours bluffing, making accusations, and trying to uncover the hidden mafia members.
On the surface, it looks like a bunch of wealthy tech executives having fun.
But the game’s popularity may reveal something deeper…
More Than Just a Game
Mafia is ultimately a game about identifying outliers.
At first glance, everyone appears to be similar. They all make convincing arguments and claim to be innocent.
But hidden among the crowd are a few people who are fundamentally different from everyone else. The challenge is figuring out who they are.
That’s a skill many of these tech leaders rely on in their professional lives.
After all, VCs don’t get handed a list of future winners. And founders don’t wear signs announcing they’ll build billion-dollar companies.
The fact is, the next breakthrough startup often looks surprisingly ordinary at first.
Here’s what I mean…
From Ordinary to Extraordinary
Take a look:
These slides are from a pitch deck of an early-stage hospitality startup. Pretty ordinary, right?
But as it turns out, the company that created this deck was Airbnb (Nasdaq: ABNB).
Today, it’s worth $82 billion.
How about these slides?
Again, nothing fancy. These are from an early pitch deck by Dropbox (Nasdaq: DBX), the file-sharing service founded in 2007 — and worth nearly six billion dollars today.
The point is, when it comes to playing a parlor game, or searching for the next great investment opportunity, investors need to learn to spot subtle clues that others overlook.
Let me explain…
The Investor’s Version of the Mafia
Thousands of startups raise capital every year. Many have compelling stories, target large markets, and have charismatic founders.
But only a small percentage will generate exceptional returns for investors. The trick is figuring out which ones.
That’s why professional investors spend so much time studying management teams, market opportunities, notable traction, competitive advantages, and customer demand.
They’re searching for evidence, and trying to determine which companies stand apart from the crowd.
In other words, they’re playing their own version of Mafia — not to identify hidden criminals, but to identify hidden winners.
It’s What We Do
This is why Crowdability exists.
Every year, thousands of startups seek capital. Most won’t succeed.
Some are targeting markets that are too small. Others have weak business models. Some simply aren’t ready.
Our job is to sort through these opportunities and identify the companies we believe deserve a closer look. It’s a process that involves research, analysis, and a healthy amount of skepticism. Because just like in the game Mafia, appearances can be deceiving.
The most promising opportunity isn’t always the one that’s loudest. And the company with the greatest potential isn’t always the one attracting the most attention.
Your Seat at the Table
The tech leaders gathered around Founders Fund’s Mafia table are all searching for the same thing: the person hiding in plain sight.
That’s what makes the game so compelling.
And that’s what makes startup investing so rewarding.
Every once in a while, if you know what to look for, you can discover something extraordinary that’s hiding in plain sight. We simply help you find it before everyone else does.
Happy investing.
Editor
Crowdability.com
