"I've probably seen my founders cry more than anybody else. They've seen me cry more than probably everyone on our team. Our job is intimacy at the end of the day."
Rick built Equal Ventures with a core philosophy — to do everything at the intersection of community, capital, and conviction.
The moment I stepped into the Equal office, I was faced with a wall covered in plaques. Logos of Threeflow, Stand, Equal Parts, Leap, Ghost, Odyssey, Texture, and more. Every startup the team has placed conviction in. Each one was hung up as if it was the high school diploma of a parent's favorite child. I had originally thought of Equal as just like any other VC, but was quickly proven wrong. There is an incredible sense of respect and intense focus that can be felt.
"How many founders do you think I meet each week?" Rick asks me.
"50," I guess. Reasonable, I would say, for a high-functioning VC.
"Nope. I meet less than one founder per week. Dead serious. I take maybe two to three founder meetings per month."
Rick is someone who understands that the value he's creating does not compound with scale, but rather intentional scarcity and earned trust.
When I asked what his superpower might be, he replied:
"Being the connective tissue between the old and the new."
He pauses for a moment, then continues: "I think I have enough dirt underneath my fingernails to resonate with the past, but also enough credibility in this new world where I can bridge those two worlds together."
Given how Rick is building Equal, I would say that's pretty spot on.