Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by agrona 4651 days ago
Forgive my ignorance, but what does it mean for a founder to be "formidable"?

e.g. in this context:

> The founder who handles fundraising should be the CEO, who should in turn be the most formidable of the founders.

1 comments

http://www.paulgraham.com/convince.html

"But the foundation of convincing investors is to seem formidable, and since this isn't a word most people use in conversation much, I should explain what it means. A formidable person is one who seems like they'll get what they want, regardless of whatever obstacles are in the way. Formidable is close to confident, except that someone could be confident and mistaken. Formidable is roughly justifiably confident."