Boris Wertz of Version One recently put the returns of his investment portfolio up for every one to see. In the comments, there’s a discussion of the risk profiles of Venture Capitalists and Company Founders. Wertz says: “I personally think that being a founder is the much, much harder job — we have a portfolio of companies, a founder only has one! Our losses are being more than outweighed by some of the winners, an option a founder doesn’t have. Venture Capital is definitely

When you take a risk, you feel it. You feel the anxiety. You feel the fear. You know something could go bad. But you take the risk because it could go well. Which means you feel something more than fear and anxiety: You feel hope. You hope the bad thing doesn’t happen. You hope the good thing does. You hope it goes well. Hope and fear are the two sides of taking risks. But when you’re a spy, you don’t want either one. You don’t want fear, because fear will slow you down. And

To know what risks to manage, you start with the risks that are possible. Past data is great for telling you what’s possible. History gives you an idea of what could happen in the future. In the history of espionage, a lot of things have happened. Some good, a lot bad. Some world-changing, some deadly. Some spies have been executed. Some spies have won wars. If you categorized all the good and bad things spies have faced in history and put them on a scale, it might look like