The Talent Agent Model

Posted 27 February 2025

By Simon Pastor
Talent Investor: Senior Associate

a new model for talent investing

Two years ago, I joined Entrepreneurs First to help establish our presence in the United States. As a Talent Investor, my role is to identify and attract exceptional founders, support them through our program, and ultimately decide which teams we’ll invest in. Talent investing is a unique role and EF is a unique company, which often makes it difficult to explain what I do to family and friends.

Recently, it became clearer to me: I’m an agent and a manager for North America’s best future founders. I believe in someone before anyone else does, and do whatever it takes to help them become a superstar. This philosophy seems to be shared by some other VCs – which would explain why Mike Ovitz – the legendary talent investor and founder of Creative Artists Agency (CAA) – is on the advisory board of a16z and a close advisor to Josh Kushner (Thrive).

Over the past few months, I’ve gone deep into the world of talent agencies—studying how they were built, how they operate, and what is special about those that dominate. The lessons from that industry are strikingly relevant to investing. Here are a few that stand out:

1. Go early

Imagine trying to become Leonardo DiCaprio’s agent today, signing Cristiano Ronaldo to your club, or getting either to join your next big project. Almost impossible, right? Unless you’re overpaying, offering something significantly better than the competition, or very lucky, the only way to secure a superstar is to find them early—before the rest of the world recognizes their potential.

The best agents all started off as great scouts and the best investors are still hungry to identify talent as early as possible. Marc Andreesen, despite managing over $40B, maintains that “the core of what we do is always going to be early stage venture.” In a similar vein, Peter Fenton believes that one of the reasons people get worse in venture over time, is because as they get older they struggle to make enough time to find that next great young entrepreneur. In other words once you stop scouting you start losing.

2. Only go after superstars

Talent investing requires deep conviction and strong relationships, both of which take time to develop. You can’t afford to waste that time on people you only half-believe in. The approach only works if you believe this person has an insane amount of potential.

When a junior agent was trying to sign Ronaldinho—at the time, the biggest soccer star in the world—he brought a senior partner to Rio. The meeting was scheduled for Monday, but Ronaldinho didn’t show up until Wednesday. The junior agent expected the senior partner to be furious, but instead, he just shrugged and said, “We’re chasing the biggest soccer player in the world. This is what we do. Don’t worry about it.”

3. Talent comes first

In a true talent-first model, the product adapts to the talent—not the other way around.

When Paula Wagner met a 19-year-old Tom Cruise, CAA didn’t typically represent young actors. But she believed in him, “brought him into the office, sold her heart out, and convinced the agency to take a chance.”

Tom Cruise went on to become one of the highest-grossing actors of all time, earning over 1bn$ and grossing over $12 billion worldwide – making him the seventh highest-grossing actor of all time.

Some of the most successful venture investments come from funds changing strategies to back certain companies/founders – whether its a16z making their first crypto investment with Coinbase or Sequoia making their first investment in Brazil with Nubank.

4. Be a fixer

Great agents—and great investors—solve problems. That means being available, well-connected, and resourceful. Does a founder need a visa? You know the right lawyer. Are they hiring? You introduce them to candidates and recruiters.

Michael Ovitz became a living directory of the most knowledgeable, celebrated professionals available— physicians of all kinds chief among them. Ovitz knew the best doctors to consult and the best hospitals to be treated at. He could also recommend the “right” educational institution, be it college or private school. If a studio was hiring an executive and needed to get the executive’s kid into a private school, Ovitz knew the heads of each and what buttons to push for admission. All these talents made Ovitz indispensable as an agent, and his expertise was genuinely client-serving, not self-aggrandizing.

One client put it best: Ovitz was never really my agent, but there was always this feeling that if you had a real problem you could go see Don Corleone (Mike Ovitz) and he would fix it. I had always felt taken care of.

Josh Kushner of Thrive exemplifies this mindset. When Sam Altman was fired, OpenAI’s COO Brad Lightcap recalled Kushner’s immediate response: “What can I do to help?”

5. Teams beat individuals

In venture, where the Midas List celebrates individual investors and firms experience high churn, investing can often feel like a solo pursuit—leading to a sense of possessiveness over deals. However, the best firms operate as teams where founders engage with multiple investors, and these teams consistently outperform individuals.

I always marvelled at the willingness of agents to open up their relationships and I’ve always believed that this fundamental lesson – that more smart people working on a particular team would always yield better results – remains one of the magic elements of CAA.