This week, Inspired Capital is announcing Fund IV: $450 million in new capital to back early-stage founders. It’s a milestone I’m grateful for. Seven years into my own 25-year business plan, I have been reflecting on what carries a firm, or a company, that far.
For me, the answer has always been a long-term mindset. From day one at Inspired, I have planned to be in it for the long haul. Knowing that what I want to accomplish can only happen in decades has shaped who we hire, who we partner with, and which problems we choose to spend our time on.
The market is currently rewarding those who ship products out quickly. Don’t get me wrong; speed is essential, especially in this market with AI. I’m admittedly impatient in execution, even as I’m deeply long-term in strategy. But speed is a quality that describes how you move. The long-term mindset decides what direction you are going. Without it, you’re moving fast but possibly in the opposite direction from where you want to go. Of everything I’ve learned while building companies, nothing has brought me further along than the habit of asking where a decision will lead decades from now.
How a long-term mindset filters everyday decisions
Although having a long-term mindset can feel abstract, it actually helps tremendously in everyday operations. Leaders deal with a plethora of daily decisions, and one of my favorite techniques is to lean on the long-term mindset as a way to filter, making it easier to say yes or no because you are extremely confident in where you are headed. Many of the founders we’ve backed at Inspired work in this way. Michael Brown, the cofounder and CEO of Teamshares, is a founder who I’ve seen do this since day one. His company buys small businesses from retiring owners and helps the employees earn stock in the companies they work in.
I distinctly remember that when we invested in Teamshares back in 2020, the team was five people in a WeWork space—but Michael walked in with a 200-year plan. This was unusual because I often see founders pitch their vision for the next 18 months. Michael had already thought through what he wanted the next two centuries of Teamshares to look like.
When I had him on my podcast, he told me where the idea came from: He was celebrating his 30th birthday in Hong Kong when he was struck by the success of Swire and Jardine Matheson, trading companies that began as small operations two centuries ago. “That was really inspiring to think that something really large and really durable could start so small,” he said. When I asked how a plan that long shapes an ordinary day, his answer was surprisingly practical. His team meets daily to review the acquisition funnel, and before he votes on a new company, he asks himself one question. “Do I think this business will be around in 50 years? And that has to be a yes.”
In June 2026, Teamshares began trading on Nasdaq under the ticker TMS, having acquired more than 90 companies along the way. As Teamshares’ IPO day approached, Michael told me he nevertheless saw this moment as the first inning. “I don’t know if it’s the top of the first or the bottom of the first, but it’s still the first inning,” he said.
Surround yourself with people who run on the same clock
Holding a long-term mindset is hard to do solo, but it becomes immediately easier when the people you surround yourself with share this worldview. Taylor Francis, the CEO of Watershed, is the perfect example of a founder who fully embodies this quality and expects it of the people around him. He told me that his team set out to help companies reduce or remove 500 million tons of CO2 per year by 2030, and that “before we had a product, before we had a pitch, we had that number.” Taylor explained that he learned this trick at Stripe: The bigger and more insane-sounding your mission is, the easier it is to achieve. Why? Because it’s “big enough and compelling enough that the smartest people, the most tenacious people, want to be a part of it.”
Before making a new hire, Watershed ensures that candidates are mission-aligned. In interviews, Taylor says the company is abundantly clear about its operating principles, intensity, and care, so that anyone can opt out if they are not on board. This is why Watershed ends up with “a culture of people who’ve opted in to both halves of that.” A long, ambitious mission that is unwavering asks a lot of people, but because it’s always transparent, people know exactly what they are signing up for.
Not only does Taylor hire employees with this in mind, but his investors share this long-term mindset. Taylor told me he sees “a calmness and a long-term orientation” in the investors who’ve been a part of some of the greatest companies ever. The more the people around you share the same long-term values, the easier it is to lead and make the daily decisions that set you up for success.
Come into work in 2036
With all of this being said, short-term pressure is part of reality and is still crucial. You can’t ignore quarterly product milestones, closing the next customer, or raising more funding. But the leaders who can balance the truths of the short-term pressures with the vision of the 25-year plan in mind are the leaders who can execute with calmness and credibility.
We hold ourselves to that standard at Inspired. My cofounder Penny Pritzker and I always say, “When you have a framework—this is my mission, and here are my values—in a funny way, hard decisions are pretty easy.” I truly walk into the Inspired office every morning mentally in 2036, and I expect that same mentality from every person on our team.
As we head into Fund IV, I feel exactly how Michael described Teamshares heading into its IPO: We are still in our first inning and just getting started. Fund IV is our bet on the same mission we started with. Founders who bend the world to their realities and truly change the status quo deserve a partner who invests far more than capital. We get out of bed every day because they inspire us to build a better future and a happier planet.
