Bradley Tusk is a venture capitalist, political strategist, philanthropist, and writer. He is the Founder and CEO of Tusk Ventures, the world’s first venture capital fund that invests solely in early-stage startups in highly regulated industries. The fund’s portfolio includes notable investments in Ro, Care/of, Alma, Coinbase, Bird, and MainStreet.
On the first hour of his day.
I’m up between 5 and 5:30 am most mornings.
After rolling out of bed, I’ll feed the dog, make some coffee, and triage my email and texts that I received overnight.
If there’s nothing pressing, I’ll dive into reading the newspapers.
My son and I have a morning ritual where we read the NY Post together every morning a little after 6 am when he wakes up — I love spending that time with him.
Once we’ve finished, we go through the motions of our normal routine of eating breakfast and getting dressed for the day. During normal times, I’d walk my son to school with the dog, and then go either to the office or the gym depending on the day.
On investing in infrastructure.
Most of my work involves keeping an eye on things, making decisions, and sales.
For me, a good day is a mix of things I like to do: venture-focused work, politics, content creation with my podcast or through writing op-eds, and the philanthropic work we do through our foundation. It’s a good variety of work, and it keeps me engaged.
I’ve spent a good amount of time building an infrastructure that can handle the immense workload we have for ourselves.
I’ve got an exceptional team around me who help me on a day-to-day basis. Their work allows me to focus on the bigger picture strategic decisions that need to be made.
On hiring the right people.
You have to find the right team members with the right skill set and attitude.
The most important thing is finding people who can contribute to the culture we’ve carefully and intentionally built.
Every Monday morning, our whole team gets a 20-page memo covering the latest from every business line in the company, be it venture, consulting, SPAC’s or content creation.
It gives everyone the bigger picture, and it allows them to see how they’re contributing to the greater whole of building our business, and ultimately, our hard-working community.
Almost everything we do here requires a high level of difficulty, so I believe building the right culture allows me to get the kind of talent that can execute work at a high standard.
On scaling his team.
In the first 5 years of running my consulting business, I was deeply involved with absolutely everything that was going on.
When scaling happened, the trick was maintaining the original vision without having to touch absolutely every process.
By definition, you’re going to be the best-equipped person to do the work that needs to be done because it was your vision in the first place. You have to get comfortable with stepping back, which was the hardest thing for me to do.
To overcome that, hiring a really competent and talented team of people who can create a substantial culture and get the required work done is key. Additionally, something that was important for me was investing in my personal office.
Having a great assistant and scheduler enabled me to find pockets in my day where I could do things that were impactful and beneficial for the business.
On dealing with rejection.
It’s okay to feel dejected when you don’t win a client.
It’s not okay to take that anger out on your staff or the people around you.
It’s a matter of contextualizing. I realized that the more extra obligations I have going on in the background, the easier it is for me to move on from my disappointment.
Losing the Andrew Yang Campaign for NY Mayor was a hard pill to swallow, but that was more because of how high the stakes were. Because I had so much going on in the consulting, venture, and SPAC fronts, it was easy for me to get my mind off the loss and focus on things that were more pertinent in the present.
It’s critical to realize that when things can go south, you have to deal with them. If all you want is success at no risk, you have to lower your expectations and ambitions.
On his evening routine.
After I’ve gotten home from my workday, I’ll sit down with my family for dinner around 6:30 or 7 pm.
If there’s anything pressing, I’ll do some work post-dinner, but if not, you’ll find me talking to my wife, watching the Mets game, or walking the dog.
Before going to sleep, I try to read a little bit to wind down. Finally, I’m in bed with lights out by 10:30 pm.
