The hardest attribute for investors to accurately gauge is experience. Experience is more of a soft skill than a list of accomplishments. Experience is not meant to be a list of dry facts, but an indicator of future behavior.
A resume will list the history and accomplishments but it does not necessarily list what the person learned and how they will react to problems. A jack-of -all-trades brings very different skills than someone who spent the last twenty years focused in the primary field of the company. Who is better if you have to choose between them?
What about someone who spent ten years at a Fortune 500 company who has many contacts and international experience versus someone who spent the last 10 years working at small startups in the same area? Both are successful. Who do you pick?
The easy answer is both. What if there are two companies, equally suited for investment; and these people are at these different companies? You can only invest in one. The problem just became very difficult.
The problem is therefore to first understand the question and then to understand what would properly answer this question: What is important about experience and why should we care?
More on this tomorrow…
