Shownotes
BIO: Rex Salisbury is the Founder & General Partner at Cambrian Ventures, a pre-seed & seed focused fintech fund.
STORY: Rex’s biggest mistake ever was sticking with his initial career too long, even though he knew he shouldn’t have been working that job.
LEARNING: Invest in the skill that you want to move into as much as you. Build networks early in your career.
“Make yourself marketable. It’s amazing what you can learn if you invest in certain things.”
Rex Salisbury
Guest profile
Rex Salisbury is the Founder & General Partner at Cambrian Ventures, a pre-seed & seed focused fintech fund. He previously was a Partner at Andreessen Horowitz, where he helped launch the fintech vertical. He has over a decade of experience working in finance & fintech, primarily as a software engineer, before becoming a venture capitalist.
Worst investment ever
Rex’s biggest mistake ever was sticking with his initial career too long. Rex attended a small liberal arts college on the American east coast—Davidson. He had a great experience and made a lot of good lifelong friends. Rex studied economics and also got a major in history.
During his senior year, Rex worked in investment banking, specifically for Merrill Lynch. He also did an internship in South Africa and studied formal money lending. After college, Rex went to work in a bank. He believed that since banks are big businesses, there must be interesting work to do.
Unfortunately, the experience wasn’t what Rex had imagined. He hated his job and had begun thinking about quitting from the second month on the job. But he kept dragging on and wasted the first four years of his career doing something he knew he shouldn’t have been doing.
Lessons learned
- Quitting can be a very important skill to exercise.
- If you’re considering leaving something like a job, you should quit it sooner rather than later for better life outcomes.
- It’s incredibly important to have access to good networks early in your career.
- If you have the unfair advantage of being young, relatively unattached, and the ability to relocate geographically, do it. It will expand your networks.
Andrew’s takeaways
- If you’re feeling like quitting, take that seriously. Sit down, write about it, talk to someone about it, and start to take some action.
- Invest in the skill that you want to move into as much as you. That will help you make that transition.
Actionable advice
If you’re interested in a particular area, find other people who are really good at writing and talking about that area. Exercising that muscle over time can help open doors to building valuable networks and relationships.
No.1 goal for the next 12 months
Rex’s number one goal for the next 12 months is to identify individuals building the next big companies that will change financial services and invest in 12 of the most interesting of those.
Parting words
“If you feel like you don’t have the skill set to affect some of these changes, put in the work.”
Rex Salisbury
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