Discerene Core Values

1. Act with integrity and honesty.

  • Our reputation, and the trust of others, is our most important asset. We work hard to earn and keep it.
  • We strive to be known for our honesty and integrity in all our dealings. In commercial matters, we play and negotiate hard, but fair.

‍2. Be good stewards and good partners.

  • Each Discerene person thinks and behaves like an owner.
  • We strive to be true fiduciaries of our investors’ capital.
  • We strive to be good stewards of Firm capital. We are unafraid to invest Firm resources for the long term if they are NPV-positive and value-creating. However, we strive to avoid waste and inefficiencies, and conspicuous spending for its own sake.

‍3. Build a win-win team.

  • We are in this together: We strive to maintain a spirit of collaboration and teamwork. The whole is better than the sum of its parts.
  • We are patient and resilient. When the going gets tough, we do not give up, but will fight for each other. We “fall in” and not “fall out.”
  • We strive to enable our employees, families, and friends to flourish.

‍4. Strive to be A-players.

  • We push each other to get better in the pursuit of excellence and ultimate truth.
  • We are driven, competitive, and ambitious. We are unafraid to work hard to achieve our goals.
  • We strive to have a growth mindset as a Firm, focused on what we can do better, not just on what we do well.
  • We strive to become the best investors we can be.
  • We strive to maintain high standards of research quality, analytical rigor, depth, and breadth, and a relentless emphasis on expanding mental models and reducing blind spots.
  • We are brutally honest about our shortcomings and are willing to work to overcome them, with the goal of trying to achieve strong absolute long-term compounded returns.
  • We strive to run the Firm’s operations in a best-in-class manner.
  • We strive to build a best-in-class partnership. We want to attract, retain, and develop excellent people on the team, attract the highest-quality investors, and invest with the best management teams and companies we can afford.
  • We strive to recognize, encourage, and reward excellence wherever we find it, within and outside the Firm.
  • We strive to be unafraid to make tough decisions and changes that are necessary to maintain the Firm’s culture of excellence.

‍5. Think long term.

  • We trade off short-term gains for better long-term outcomes.
  • We strive to play the “Infinite Game,” i.e., multi-round games with no ending.
    In business dealings, we care about relationships, not transactions. In particular, we strive to build generational partnerships with our investors.
  • In investing, we care about long-term success, not short-term profits. We will sacrifice the latter for the former.

‍6. Be first-principles-based thinkers, learners, and visionaries.

  • We strive to reason from first principles instead of relying on conventional wisdom in all aspects of what we do, including in investing and how we build the Firm.
  • We think independently and “outside the box.” We are not ruled by dogma but are guided by a commitment to the truth.
  • We strive to be curious, creative, imaginative, and playful in our problem solving.
  • We strive to use mistakes as learning opportunities and catalysts for constructive and sustained change.
  • We strive to be intellectually humble: Truth lies out in the world, not in our heads.
  • We strive to be unafraid to be contrarian: Truth lies not in consensus.
  • We strive to be lifelong learners: Truth is there for the discovering.

‍7. Do good and make a positive difference.

  • We strive to be givers, not just takers. People should be better off for having known us.
  • We strive to use our influence, networks, and position as a force for good for both individual people we are in positions to help and broader goals/causes we support.
  • We strive to be a positive influence on our portfolio companies, in terms of both business outcomes and business ethics.