A 250-Year Venture System

(And, ego vs. selfishness)

July 18, 2025

Delivered July 18, 2025 @ 5:00pm ET

Weather in Bloomington, IN - Sunny, 290 C / 840 F

Table of Contents

My name is Gerry Hays, Founder & CEO of Doriot® (pronounced “Doe-ree-oh”), a movement to break open the gates of venture and expand innovation and wealth beyond an elite few. Democratize Venture is my platform to explore the venture markets and share the insights, strategies, and frameworks I bring into the classroom. It’s where education meets execution—for anyone ready to play the startup game.

The 250-Year Venture System

Laying the foundation for a new era of capital creation.

I’ve used this analogy before, and I keep coming back to it: Pickleball is taking over tennis courts everywhere. It didn’t destroy tennis—it just offered a better game for more people. Easier to learn. More social. Radically accessible. Suddenly, it’s everywhere.

That’s the same shift we’re about to see in venture.

VentureStaking® is to traditional venture capital what Pickleball is to tennis: a fundamentally better investing game. One that’s faster, more inclusive, and designed for the 99% locked out of Silicon Valley. It borrows the best of Y Combinator, Wefunder, Kickstarter, and the Thiel Fellowship—and reassembles them into a new system of capital.

But this isn’t just a new funding tool.

We’re laying the foundation for a 250-year venture system—built on merit, not gatekeeping. For people who didn’t inherit capital, but are here to create it. So, if this is real, how do we protect it?

Thiel’s Law: “A startup messed up at its foundation cannot be fixed.”

We take that seriously. Our foundation isn’t just financial. It’s structural.

We’re not just building a new venture model—we’re building a new kind of entity to hold it. It’s called the Capital Creation Cooperative, and it’s the first of its kind. A structure designed to protect the integrity of the system, not sell it.

This cooperative framework draws from three sources:

  • Delaware corporate law – for legal durability and credibility

  • Cooperative principles – for shared ownership and democratic control

  • DAO programmability – for radical transparency and future-proof governance

This is how we protect what we’re building from capture. This is how we ensure VentureStaking® doesn’t end up as a product inside the traditional system. To learn more about the Capital Creation Cooperative, you are invited to download our Blueprint at www.Doriot.com/documentation

It’s Not Ego. It’s Selfishness. (And That’s the Point.)

“The ego is not master in its own house” - Sigmund Freud

I came across a LinkedIn post from a young founder saying:

“You’d be more successful if you had a way bigger ego.”

The post was raw, honest, and full of the kind of energy that moves mountains—especially in your early 20s. The post framed it as: overconfidence isn’t a problem—it’s the advantage.

And I agree. But let’s name it more precisely.
It’s not ego.
It’s selfishness.

And I’m all for it.

Founders Have to Be Selfish

Not in the greedy sense. Not in the take-everything-and-leave-nothing sense.
But in the this-matters-to-me-and-I’m-willing-to-bet-my-life-on-it sense.

That’s what selfishness looks like when you’re building from scratch.
You’re not optimizing for popularity.
You’re not seeking permission.
You’re building what you believe the world needs—even when it doesn’t believe it yet.

That’s not arrogance. That’s alignment.

The Market Doesn’t Care About Your Swagger

Here’s the turn. You can tell yourself you’re brilliant. You can wake up every morning convinced your idea is the future. Great. That’s what it takes to ship. But eventually, reality shows up. The market doesn’t care how many Medium posts you wrote. It only cares whether what you built works—and for whom.

So by all means, be bold. But stay humble enough to learn.
The moment you believe you’re above the game, the game changes the rules on you.

Grace and Conviction Can Coexist

The most dangerous thing a young founder can do is confuse ego with effectiveness. Real confidence doesn’t puff its chest. It doesn’t have to. It’s too busy building. It moves with quiet precision and long-term conviction.

The best builders I know are selfish about their time, their vision, and their standards. But they also carry gratitude—for their teams, their users, and the people in their corner.

They don’t talk down.
They talk forward.

You’re Not Just Building a Product—You’re Building a Life

And that life? It will test you.
More than product-market fit.
More than the next round.
It will test whether you still know who you are when the thing you built breaks.

So yes—be selfish. Believe in your brilliance. But know that selfishness alone won’t get you there.

You need stamina.
You need humility.
And you need a reason that still matters when your first vision falls apart.

Ego is fleeting.
Clarity is permanent.

Wishing you a focused and fulfilling weekend,

– Gerry ([email protected])

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