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David Lieb@dflieb
Reminder: If an investor tells you they were "an operator", what they are actually saying is "I was an employee".
2:47 PM · Jun 18, 2026 · 4.6K Views
David Lieb argues that investors who call themselves "operators" were actually employees rather than founders or company leaders
Venture capitalists Martín Casado and Garry Tan recirculated the post.
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Sentiment
Positive users praised the post exposing investors' 'operator experience' claims, while negative users sarcastically mocked the term as a euphemism for prior employment failures or low-level jobs like waiting tables.
Pos
22.2%
Neg
77.8%
9 comments with sentiment.
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VIEWS561
Nikunj Kothari@nikunj
@dflieb The main thing is “were” - you’re ngmi. You still need to keep building to at least know what works or not.
2hViews 561Likes 3
LIKES6
Lee Edwards@terronk
@dflieb VC : “operator” :: academic : “industry”
1hViews 141Likes 6
RETWEETS3
David Lieb@dflieb
Reminder: If an investor tells you they were "an operator", what they are actually saying is "I was an employee".
4hViews 23.2KLikes 269Bookmarks 23
James Ulan 🗽@JamesUlan100
@dflieb in high school I was a waiter at Red Robin for 3 months. total operator right there.
4hViews 347Likes 2
Founder @ Blue Magma@JouffrayAndrew
@dflieb I operated the fryer at McDonald
2hViews 397Likes 1
lmeyerov@lmeyerov
@dflieb "I streamlined a rocket built by others"
3hViews 384Likes 1
Alex Salsali@AlexJFRSalsali
@dflieb Eveyone starts somewhere.. but fair
3hViews 400
Mike LaSala@LaSala_Mike
@dflieb Well struck sir 👏👏
2hViews 253
lucy chen@lucychen_
@dflieb
3hViews 193
Saarth Shah@saarth_
@dflieb 🤣
3hViews 157
Paul Jump@paulljump
@dflieb Lmao
2hViews 117
tanmaye@tanmaye_bhatia
@dflieb Hilarious
2hViews 107
Jack Armstrong@armstrong_jackk
@dflieb Reminder: If a young investor tells you they were “an operator”, what they are actually saying is “I wasn’t good at what I did before, so I jumped to venture to make it seem like I didn’t fail at my last job”
It’s a classic
2hViews 93
Vraj Parikh@just_vraj
@dflieb “At my last role i was an operator at a pretty niche scale up called Goldman Sachs. It was so awesome to see the company go from 0-100 in my time there”
1hViews 69
Ray Zhou@AstrogationNQ
@dflieb is there something wrong with being an employee
1hViews 35
David Winer@davidjwiner
@dflieb Banger
1hViews 15
Sam Elliott@samelliottsam
@dflieb @garrytan Usually non-technical too
1hViews 4