OK, I see this story on Business Insider about Masha Drokova, a 28 year old woman venture capitalist who plays romantic matchmaker for company founders to improve returns.
It appears to be a fairly unremarkable puff piece, called a beat sweetener in the biz, but it did not ring true to me.
First, it is an article of faith among VCs that they don’t want anything competing for a founder’s time, particularly romantic entanglements.
Her philosophy would be a disincentive for investors.
Second, how the f%$# can a 28 year old woman who did not go to Stanford end up a Silicon Valley VC?
Between the Stanford tribalism, and the rampant bro culture, her Russian background, and the current anti-Russia hysteria, who would fund her and her unorthodox odox investing philosophy:
"Everyone is more productive when they fall in love," says Masha Drokova.
Drokova is the founder of Day One Ventures, a San Francisco-based firm focused on early-stage investments. The 28-year-old runs her firm differently than that of the average Silicon Valley venture capitalist: She considers investing in companies to be a deeply holistic undertaking, often forming close, personal relationships with her portfolio companies' founders.
"If I don't have a human connection with someone, I won't do business with them," says Drokova. "For me, it's never just about the money. I'm going to know most of my founders for the next five or 10 years. If you don't have a personal connection with a person, it's likely that your business relationship will fall apart."
Even stranger is her previous claim to fame, as a leader of a pro-Putin youth group, and later the subject of a documentary, Putin’s Kiss:
Masha Drokova is best known as the girl who kissed Vladimir Putin.
She planted one on the Russian president's cheek while a leader of Nashi, the now defunct pro-Kremlin youth organization dubbed "Putin's private army" by critics.
Nashi brought Drokova moderate fame and future. For a while she had her own talk show. Her connections to the Kremlin, where she often met with top officials, helped get her into a Moscow university. She was able to afford a flashy car and an apartment in the pricey Russian capital.
Drokova's rise from an ordinary teenager to an activist who took meetings with Russia's elite behind the red walls of the Kremlin is rivaled only by her fall from the grace of those who brought her in. It's a cautionary tale partly documented in the 2012 film "Putin's Kiss."
……...
Drokova now does public relations consulting for global tech companies. As a rule, she stays away from politics in conversation and rarely talks about her past. But she spoke to Mashable about her humble upbringing in a sleepy town outside Moscow, her admiration for Putin and how she fell out of love with him while raising concerns about the potential dangers of the militant nationalism and a sort of second coming of militant youth groups that has gripped Moscow in recent months.
This could be nothing more than a puff piece, or it could be a legitimate investment strategy, or it could be a match making service masquerading as a VC firm, or it could something more sinister.
My guess is that it basically being a pump-and-dump (Unicorn) scam, which are as common in San Jose as are cockroaches, but this is profoundly weird.