We have been going around rural Nevada for a few weeks now. It’s been fun to meet people, but more importantly, listen to their concerns. We were in Elko. Then we were in Fernley, Virginia City, and Minden. I think it is important for a candidate to go out and meet with people. I saw people from the legislature in those places when it wasn’t part of their district. They wanted to learn so they could be better legislators.

We aren’t done with rural Nevada. We have plenty of places to go, and we will go back to places that we have been. We got out ahead of the snow. They are going to get eight to twelve feet in the Sierras, which they need.

Ironically, being a venture capitalist and a candidate are similar in some ways. Fellow Chicago Booth alum Guy Nohra ran for governor in Nevada in 2022. He might be able to speak to it as well. It’s not about the VC when you are an investor. It’s about the company. It’s not about you when you are a candidate. It’s about the people. If you make it about yourself or are selfish, you won’t be good after you get elected.

VCs are kind of like cowboys if they run their fund right. The best VCs I knew were the ones who saw themselves as the caddy, not the golfer.

Commodity traders were cowboys. Every day was like a gunfight at the OK Corral.

When you are a VC, you cannot let deal flow come to you. You have to go to it. Otherwise, you will fail for sure. Our fund cast a lot of fishing lines in the water. But you can’t rely on that. In our fund, we travelled. We went places others wouldn’t. Little Rock, Arkansas. Durham, NC. London. Galway, Ireland. We turned over a lot of rocks, looking for deal flow. Once, Kenny and I drove from Chicago to Cincinnati, Ohio, and back in the same day just to look at a deal. Did the same from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Michigan. No one outworked us.

One thing that is key to the genetic code of America is the horse. I saw this tweet about a ranch owner wanting to die with his horses. A person’s relationship with their horse is special. It’s one of a kind. Western movies have chronicled it, and so have novels. Cowboys and horses, jockeys and horses, cavalry officers and horses.

As we travelled through Nevada, occasionally we’d see wild horses in the desert or on a foothill. No saddle. Often very thin-looking. Not like a tame horse. They had a different look and gait.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. We moved to the city in 2003. We raised our kids there. I was never a horseman. I have ridden them a couple of times, but I wouldn’t say I know how to ride a horse. I still love them.

My family went to Tanque Verde Ranch for Spring Break a couple of times. My wife and kids would ride horses. I would play golf. I had a pair of cowboy boots for a while, but my feet outgrew them.

Horses have been in the news lately. It seems the left always wants to tear down the ideas of the old West. They twist and bend the truth. They try to annihilate the idea of the cowboy. I think that was one of the reasons I enjoyed the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada.

This quote from LH Grey’s Substack sums up why the left is trying to redefine Horses and Cowboys well:

The modern left has mastered this dark art with a fanatic’s devotion, turning language into a precision-guided munition aimed at the heart of dissent.

They don’t debate; they redefine.

They don’t argue; they delegitimize.

They don’t persuade; they pathologize.

And they do it with a smug, sanctimonious smile that begs to be punched right off their faces.

Some on the Right wing aren’t any different than the left. Great talkers, but when the going gets tough, they walk.

The idea of the cowboy is the idea of America. If you don’t think so, at the National World War II Museum’s Liberation Pavilion, they have stories of liberation retold by survivors of the Holocaust.

In one story, a survivor is approached by an American officer. The American officer asks, “Hey, what’s your name?” The survivor said, “Adolph.” “Tough name,” the officer retorted. “We ought to get you a new name.”

The survivor thought about it. It didn’t take long. “Tom Mix”, he said. “Tom”. Why Tom Mix? Because he’d seen movies before the war started of Tom Mix, an American movie cowboy. That siren call of freedom and the American cowboy came through the celluloid and embedded itself into this man’s conscience.

Horses and Cowboys are a powerful metaphor for freedom. In Nevada, when you get just outside of Las Vegas or Reno, it wouldn’t seem out of place to see a cowboy riding through the sage on a horse.

When I look at all the sage and desert as I drive through the wilderness of Nevada, I wonder if I should learn to ride a horse.

We have been going around rural Nevada for a few weeks now. It’s been fun to meet people, but more importantly, listen to their concerns. We were in Elko. Then we were in Fernley, Virginia City, and Minden. I think it is important for a candidate to go out and meet with people. I saw people from the legislature in those places when it wasn’t part of their district. They wanted to learn so they could be better legislators.

We aren’t done with rural Nevada. We have plenty of places to go, and we will go back to places that we have been. We got out ahead of the snow. They are going to get eight to twelve feet in the Sierras, which they need.

Ironically, being a venture capitalist and a candidate are similar in some ways. Fellow Chicago Booth alum Guy Nohra ran for governor in Nevada in 2022. He might be able to speak to it as well. It’s not about the VC when you are an investor. It’s about the company. It’s not about you when you are a candidate. It’s about the people. If you make it about yourself or are selfish, you won’t be good after you get elected.

VCs are kind of like cowboys if they run their fund right. The best VCs I knew were the ones who saw themselves as the caddy, not the golfer.

Commodity traders were cowboys. Every day was like a gunfight at the OK Corral.

When you are a VC, you cannot let deal flow come to you. You have to go to it. Otherwise, you will fail for sure. Our fund cast a lot of fishing lines in the water. But you can’t rely on that. In our fund, we travelled. We went places others wouldn’t. Little Rock, Arkansas. Durham, NC. London. Galway, Ireland. We turned over a lot of rocks, looking for deal flow. Once, Kenny and I drove from Chicago to Cincinnati, Ohio, and back in the same day just to look at a deal. Did the same from Chicago to Grand Rapids, Michigan. No one outworked us.

One thing that is key to the genetic code of America is the horse. I saw this tweet about a ranch owner wanting to die with his horses. A person’s relationship with their horse is special. It’s one of a kind. Western movies have chronicled it, and so have novels. Cowboys and horses, jockeys and horses, cavalry officers and horses.

As we travelled through Nevada, occasionally we’d see wild horses in the desert or on a foothill. No saddle. Often very thin-looking. Not like a tame horse. They had a different look and gait.

I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. We moved to the city in 2003. We raised our kids there. I was never a horseman. I have ridden them a couple of times, but I wouldn’t say I know how to ride a horse. I still love them.

My family went to Tanque Verde Ranch for Spring Break a couple of times. My wife and kids would ride horses. I would play golf. I had a pair of cowboy boots for a while, but my feet outgrew them.

Horses have been in the news lately. It seems the left always wants to tear down the ideas of the old West. They twist and bend the truth. They try to annihilate the idea of the cowboy. I think that was one of the reasons I enjoyed the Cowboy Poetry Gathering in Elko, Nevada.

This quote from LH Grey’s Substack sums up why the left is trying to redefine Horses and Cowboys well:

The modern left has mastered this dark art with a fanatic’s devotion, turning language into a precision-guided munition aimed at the heart of dissent.

They don’t debate; they redefine.

They don’t argue; they delegitimize.

They don’t persuade; they pathologize.

And they do it with a smug, sanctimonious smile that begs to be punched right off their faces.

Some on the Right wing aren’t any different than the left. Great talkers, but when the going gets tough, they walk.

The idea of the cowboy is the idea of America. If you don’t think so, at the National World War II Museum’s Liberation Pavilion, they have stories of liberation retold by survivors of the Holocaust.

In one story, a survivor is approached by an American officer. The American officer asks, “Hey, what’s your name?” The survivor said, “Adolph.” “Tough name,” the officer retorted. “We ought to get you a new name.”

The survivor thought about it. It didn’t take long. “Tom Mix”, he said. “Tom”. Why Tom Mix? Because he’d seen movies before the war started of Tom Mix, an American movie cowboy. That siren call of freedom and the American cowboy came through the celluloid and embedded itself into this man’s conscience.

Horses and Cowboys are a powerful metaphor for freedom. In Nevada, when you get just outside of Las Vegas or Reno, it wouldn’t seem out of place to see a cowboy riding through the sage on a horse.

When I look at all the sage and desert as I drive through the wilderness of Nevada, I wonder if I should learn to ride a horse.