A COSTUME CALLED CONVICTION

Summary from the TLDR Founders newsletter

Most VCs call themselves conviction investors. What they usually mean is they'll move quickly when a founder fits an obvious pattern: AI company, elite school, prior exit, hot market, clean memo. Real conviction is expensive. The founder is strange, the market is unproven, and the memo is ugly. The piece names this the "legibility tax." Every layer of institutional capital strips away weirdness so the deal can be defended internally. If you're building something non-obvious, you need one person willing to look foolish before the room agrees.