A LETTER FROM THE FOUNDER

In 2014 I turned down a pre-IPO offer at New Relic to be one of the first employees at a small mattress company pioneering direct-to-consumer. Some thought that was foolish, but intuition and luck were on my side. That company worked. We grew 4,000% over four years, funded entirely by our own profits. As Chief of Staff I had my hands in everything — from marketing and product to operations and finance. I learned a lot, and I loved it.

Since then I have started a number of ventures — companies, brands, software tools. Some were good ideas, a few were great ideas; but none were a huge success. Why? In hindsight, because none were the one thing I wanted to spend my life on. The venture capital industry runs on the lore of zero-to-one get-rich-quick billionaire stories — and don't like to talk about the other ninety-nine percent. At Y Combinator they tell you to come to dinner every Wednesday and grow 10% week over week — get lucky and that compounds into an Airbnb market cap. Unlucky, and it's set up to drive you out. Y Combinator only needs one.

I am designing a slower, more deliberate world. Wells Capital is named after me on purpose: I do not get to walk away from my own last name. I expect to do this for a long, long time — the compounding effects are largest in the later years.

In 2018, after the Tuft & Needle exit, I spent nine months looking for companies and moved on because I thought DTC was overhyped. I was right: DTC isn't meant for venture capital. And, I was wrong: consumers kept buying, the companies I looked at kept growing. But my eight years away was a worthwhile investment in an 80-year game; I learned about capital formation, building teams, automation, artificial intelligence, and most importantly, what I want to create as my life's work.

The AI tools available in 2026 are a persistent tailwind for the automation I already wanted to build — not a one-time opportunity window. They also produce a flood of slop. Making a pretty logo is easy. Building a brand that makes you feel something is hard. AI makes the easy part easier and the hard part more valuable.

Some of the acquisitions I make will mature in five years. Some will compound for thirty. Some will not work out. The first is what we expect. The second is what we are building toward. The third I will write about with the same candor as everything else.

Slow is steady, steady is fast.