投注重大项目前，这家风投有三个问题要问

Lux资本（Lux Capital）的合伙人莱娜塔·昆蒂妮可没想到她会成为一名风险投资家。

她成长于巴西，就读法律学校，职业生涯的初期是一名律师。昆蒂妮当初所在的律师事务所恰好服务一批投资于巴西初创企业的风险投资家客户。

她告诉《财富》杂志的投资清单栏目，“当我看到巴西的互联网基础设施开始就位，电子商务、内容服务和媒体开始发展，我开始对这一切充满了好奇。”

昆蒂妮试水投资领域始于斯坦福大学的捐赠基金，该基金投资于几十家私募基金和风投公司。三年后，她转向了风投，以普通合伙人身份加入了Felicis风险资本（Felicis Ventures），她投资过的公司包括Cruise（后被通用汽车收购）、Dollar Shave Club（后被联合利华收购）、男装电商Bonobos（后被沃尔玛收购）以及Rigetti Computing量子计算公司。

如今她就职于纽约的风投公司Lux资本，该公司主要投资于尖端科技类的创业项目。Lux资本的投资哲学是什么？越是雄心勃勃的项目，就越要投。

《财富》杂志与昆蒂妮探讨了她作为有限合伙人投资于那些疯狂的“登月”项目的经历，以及在科技领域建立坚实的道德基础的重要性。

《财富》：你在做斯坦福捐赠基金的投资人时，筛选阶段你会侧重看一位基金经理的哪些素质？

昆蒂妮：说到底，是要能持续产生回报。有一些机会和想法，在当时的商业环境下是可行的，但你无法把它快进10年看到它的演变。做一个有限合伙人，你得对一只基金锁定至少10年期的承诺，老实说，当这只基金开始第二轮筹款时，你都没有足够时间来验看成果，而且在很多情况下，你锁定承诺的不止一只基金。所以你必须考虑清楚：这个人是你愿意多年合作下去的伙伴吗？

正因如此，业绩纪录很重要。没有业绩纪录，你无从考察一个基金经理，而这时候如果你仍打算投资，那你实际上是在追随一种信仰。你得相信，这个人是真的看到了差异化的机会，并在时代的浪潮中能作出正确的决定。

Lux资本喜欢投资于一些被认为疯狂的、难以实现的“登月”项目。从投资人的角度看，是什么给了你信念去押注那些其他投资人避之不及的公司？

昆蒂妮：投资所谓“登月”项目，一个方面是因为市场在那儿。如果你有治愈癌症的药，人们会购买吗？会的。如果你设计出了完全自动化的交通工具，人们会用吗？会的。

所以这种情况的市场风险接近于零，只存在巨大的技术风险，这一点我不敢低估。接着就要问，什么样的科技进步，会让这一项目实现突破？

投资之前，我们会问自己三个问题。第一个是“为什么现在投”，对于尖端科技类项目的投资，这一问题极为关键。给那些以往难以实现的各种新试验打开大门的，是综合因素包括科技研发平台的改进和一系列的新发现。

我们花很多时间去想清楚的另一点是，对风险资本来说，在适当的时间框架下，这个项目的可行性如何。如果某创始人说他们研发某项目要花费15年，恐怕就不合适了。

第三个问题是：“确定了公司的成长时间表之后，如何理顺业务，实现增长？”有些公司里有对科技非常内行并且肩负使命感的人，投资这样的公司就很有趣，因为他们更受目标驱动而非机会主义。

哪些公司符合这些标准，能举个例吗？

昆蒂妮：Planet公司（小型地球影像卫星开发者）的创始团队就是这样，他们曾一起在美国航空航天局（NASA）工作。后来他们开始思考，造那些大卫星既费钱又费力，却只能拍摄地球很小一部分的影像，且大量数据无法获取。为什么不发射能绕地球飞行的影像传感器？正是为这念头所驱使，他们离开NASA开始创业。客观的要素都具备了，他们就成功实现了这一跨越。

你谈到过科技的人性化。你如何看待未来10年里，人与机器，人与机器人的关系演变？

昆蒂妮：在这个时代，科技为我们所做之多已经到了让人难以置信的地步。平衡点在于要明白我们到底需要机器做什么，以及我们在多大程度上信任它们，这些都是当下有趣的话题。

由于科技的强大和普及，“我懂什么”和“我信什么”这两个问题会变得越来越重要。人们开始意识到，在科技的后端有许多摆不上台面的事，比如说关于假新闻的争议和算法偏见的话题，这些事是严重的，而且已经屡见不鲜。

我们消费者会想，到底发生了什么，我们该信什么，有什么制衡措施。对消费者而言，科技从未如此强大，也从未如此吓人。换句话说，科技固然为我做了很多，可你还瞒着我干了些什么？

建立恰当的制衡机制，是科技公司目前面对的大机会，它会让人们继续相信科技、拥抱创新。说说人工智能吧，我们人类个体是无论如何都无法处理和搜索如此巨量的数据信息的，人工智能实在有用。计算机可以处理低端的、重复性的工作，其速度人也是望尘莫及，但人可以有情绪有判断，这就是很强的人机关系。

在人工智能的浪潮下，人需要发展哪些技能？

昆蒂妮：情商会变得非常重要。以往一切的努力都是要拓展科技的边界，让我们可以做得更多更快。而现在，问题将从“我能做吗？”变成 “我该做吗，以及我该怎么做？”我认为科技带来的人所不欲的后果将成为现实，所以我支持对伦理问题的探讨。

你曾写过文章阐述组织内共情和伦理的重要性。创始人在塑造公司文化时，应该考虑些什么？

昆蒂妮：每个人都会谈到使命和远景。但实际上，我觉得从公司创立的第一天开始就要想清楚的是，我们公司支持什么，不支持什么，边界在哪里。

我们有什么样的价值观？不能只考虑关键绩效指标1是增长，2是利润。赚钱固然重要，但当今科技业的变化是，你不仅要会赚钱，也要有道德。

创始人必须不断问自己，如何在组织内建立透明度和信任度，另外如何衡量和激励正确的行为也同样重要。（财富中文网）

译者：宣峰 

Lux Capital partner Renata Quintini wasn’t supposed to be a venture capitalist.

She grew up in Brazil, went to law school, and began her career as an attorney. Quintini was working at a law firm that represented venture capital clients who were backing Brazilian startups.

“It was during a time when the Internet infrastructure was getting laid out in Brazil, and e-commerce, content, and media was all starting to develop,” she told Term Sheet. “I became really curious.”

Quintini decided to try her hand at investing as an investment manager at Stanford University’s endowment, which backs dozens of private equity and venture capital firms. After three years, she made the move to the VC side and joined Felicis Ventures as a general partner. There, she invested in companies including Cruise (acq. by GM), Dollar Shave Club (acq. by Unilever), Bonobos (acq. by Walmart), and Rigetti Computing.

Now, she’s at Lux Capital, a New York-based venture firm focused on deep tech investing. The firm’s guiding philosophy? The more ambitious the project, the better.

Term Sheet caught up with Quintini to discuss her experience as a limited partner, investing in moonshot projects, and the importance of a strong ethical foundation in tech.

TERM SHEET: As an investor at Stanford’s endowment, what did you look for in a fund manager during the vetting process?

QUINTINI: When you come down to it, it’s about delivering returns consistently. Sometimes you can have stories and opportunities that make sense right now, but you can’t fast-forward 10 years from now and see how they’ll evolve. When you become an LP, you’re locking yourself up for at least a 10-year commitment on that one fund, and honestly, by the time people come back to raise their second fund, there hasn’t been enough time for you to actually see results. So in most cases, you’re actually making a more than one-fund commitment. You always have to think about — is this someone I want to be in business with for many, many years to come?

So a track record is important. If it’s someone who doesn’t have a track record, you don’t have a lot to draw from. And if you still decide to invest, you’re really going after the belief. You need to believe that this person really sees a differentiated opportunity, and you trust they’ll be able to make the right decisions as the landscape evolves.

Lux likes to invest in companies that are considered moonshots. As an investor, what gives you the conviction to bet on a company that other investors tend to shy away from?

QUINTINI: One thing about moonshot investing is that you know the market is there. If you cure cancer, are people going to buy the drug? Yes. If you figure out completely autonomous transportation, will people use it? Yes.

So the market risk is close to zero. That leaves a big technical risk, I’m not underestimating that. But then you ask — What changes in science and technology would actually make this breakthrough possible?

Before investing, we ask ourselves three questions. The first is “why now,” which is critical for deep tech investing. It’s a combination of either platform changes or a new sequence of discoveries — a big change that opens up a bunch of new experiments that weren’t possible before.

The other thing we spend a lot of time thinking about is whether this is feasible in the time frame that is conducive to venture capital. If a founder says they’ll spend 15 years developing something, it doesn’t work for the model.

And the third question you ask is, “Given your timeline of development, how does a business stack on top of that?” It’s really fun to invest in these types of companies because you have people who know the science deeply and they’re missionaries. They’re more purpose-driven than opportunistic.

What’s an example of a company that fits that criteria?

QUINTINI: The founders of Planet [a developer of small, Earth-imaging satellites] were all working together at NASA. They began thinking about how big satellites require a lot of money and effort, and they were only imaging little pieces of the Earth without a whole lot of accessible data. What if you could have this constellation of imaging sensors that can go around the Earth? That’s what drove them to leave NASA and try. All the elements were there that made it feasible for them to take the leap.

You’ve talked about the humanization of technology. How do you see humans’ relationships with robots and machines evolving in the next decade?

QUINTINI: We’re at a point that technology can do a lot of things for us, which is really incredible. The right balance will be figuring out what we actually want them to do for us and how much we trust them. That’s the interesting dialogue going on right now.

Because tech is so powerful and so pervasive, the questions of “What is it that I understand?” and “What is it that I trust?” will become more and more important. People are starting to wake up to the fact that there are so many things happening on the back-end of tech that are not transparent. Take the fake news debate and the conversations about the biases in algorithms — those are serious and those are happening at scale.

It makes us as consumers wonder what is really going on, what we trust, and what the checks and balances are. On the consumer side, it’s never been as powerful but it’s also never been as scary. Like, you do so much for me, but what is it that you’re doing that I don’t know?

Now, the big opportunity for tech is to build the right checks and balances so people can continue to trust and embrace innovation. If you think about AI, there’s no way humans can process and infer from such a large volume of data, and that’s so helpful. Computers can do the menial, repetitive tasks at a speed that humans can’t, and it allows us to have the emotion and judgement. It’s a very powerful relationship.

What kind of skills will human workers need to thrive in this AI revolution?

QUINTINI: EQ will be so important. For the longest time, it was all about pushing the technological boundaries to enable us to do more and to do it faster. Now, the questions will change from “Can I do it?” to “Should I do it, and how should I do it?” I think the unintended consequences are a reality, and I love that people are now talking about ethics.

You’ve written about the importance of empathy and ethics within an organization. What should founders be thinking about when helping shape a company’s culture?

QUINTINI: Everyone talks about mission statements and vision statements. But actually thinking about what it is that our company will stand for, what our company will not stand for, and where we draw the line should be very clear from Day 1.

What are the values that we have? It’s more than just thinking: KPI No. 1 is growth, KPI No. 2 is profit. Of course it’s important to have a good business, but the change in tech now is that you not only have to have a good business, but you also must have a do-good company.

Founders have to constantly ask themselves how they can build transparency and trust across their organization. And it’s important to figure out how to measure and incentivize the right behaviors.