Imagine you’re offered two investments: one is a company with strong financials and a clear market advantage, but a mediocre leadership team; the other is a company with average metrics but led by visionary operators who’ve repeatedly shown they can turn lemons into lemonade. Which would you choose?

At TAMIM, we’ve long championed the importance of backing not just businesses, but the people who run them. And two recent stories, one from the bleeding edge of AI, and the other from the world of venture capital and early-stage investing, bring this idea into sharper focus than ever.

Welcome to the Skill Stack Era: a time when adaptability, learning speed, and multi-domain competence in individuals are just as important as traditional business fundamentals. This isn’t just a theory, it’s becoming a necessity in a world changing faster than ever before.

Sam Altman and the Rise of the Infinite Learner

Sam Altman, CEO of OpenAI and one of Silicon Valley’s most recognisable names, recently made a pointed comment: the best way to remain employable in the AI age is to be extremely ambitious and adaptable. Those who can learn quickly, work hard, and navigate uncertainty will thrive, even as AI changes entire industries overnight.

Altman’s point isn’t just about employment, it’s about leadership and value creation. The kind of people who will win in the AI era are not just coders or engineers; they’re polymaths, entrepreneurs, and operators who can combine technical knowledge with business acumen, who iterate fast, and who aren’t afraid of pivoting. They stack skills like chess pieces.

From an investment standpoint, Altman is indirectly reinforcing a profound truth: back the jockey, not just the horse. OpenAI’s success isn’t solely a function of its models, it’s the result of Altman’s vision, network, talent-scouting, and leadership.

The lesson here? When evaluating businesses in a fast-changing world, assess the leadership stack. Are they domain experts? Can they hire well? Are they emotionally intelligent? Do they understand tech, product, finance, and strategy?

Enter Ramtin Naimi: The Unconventional Capital Allocator

On the other side of the spectrum is Ramtin Naimi, a little-known but increasingly influential early-stage investor whose fund, Abstract Ventures, has delivered spectacular results.

His background is fascinating, not from a traditional finance or VC pedigree, but from poker. He parlayed his instincts in reading people, understanding risk, and thinking probabilistically into a strategy of identifying founders with grit, resilience, and range.

Naimi’s approach focuses on backing people over ideas. He has famously written cheques to pre-product, pre-revenue founders, often based on little more than conviction in their ability to adapt, hustle, and execute.

He refers to it as backing “outliers”, people who don’t fit neatly into a resume box, but who exude that rare mix of intelligence, street smarts, and fire. Unsurprisingly, Abstract Ventures has backed companies like Figma, Ramp, Rippling, and Mercury, names that are now shaping the future of work and fintech.

The parallel to Altman’s thesis is striking. Whether building AI models or venture portfolios, the common denominator is people who build, those who can operate at the intersection of disciplines.

Investing in Human Capital: The TAMIM Perspective

So what does all this mean for us at TAMIM and for our investors?

It means we dig deeper into the leadership layer of every company we invest in. We’re asking:

• Is this founder or CEO a learner, or a legacy operator?
• Have they built and scaled before?
• Do they attract talent?
• Do they adapt fast, or cling to yesterday’s playbook?

We’ve found that the best performing companies in our portfolios often had something in common: highly capable, underestimated leaders with broad skill stacks.

Why Skill Stacking Is Now a Moat

In the past, companies built moats around products or IP. But in many industries, that edge erodes quickly. What lasts longer? Teams that can learn faster than competitors.

Skill stacking, combining multiple competencies into one individual or team, has emerged as a modern form of defensibility. Think of it as the difference between a chess grandmaster who only plays one opening vs. one who can pivot in real time.

In investing, that means finding founders who:

• Know enough product to lead engineering sprints
• Know enough sales to land anchor clients
• Understand capital markets to raise efficiently
• Can coach and build culture

It’s no longer about finding “the smartest” founder. It’s about finding the most versatile.

Investors Must Shift the Lens

In an era of noise, where AI models are released weekly, rates move unpredictably, and geopolitical shifts abound, what’s the signal?

People.

Investors can no longer afford to just read balance sheets. We need to read people:

• Listen to how they talk about the future.
• Track who they hire.
• Follow how they pivot when challenged.

This soft data often precedes hard financial outcomes.

What to Look for in a Skill Stack Founder

Here’s a mental checklist we use:

• Curiosity: Do they ask more questions than they answer?
• Range: Can they talk product and people in the same breath?
• Decisiveness: Can they make calls under uncertainty?
• Adaptability: How have they responded to change historically?
• Resilience: Are they still here after setbacks?

In a world full of hype, these traits are often the truest indicators of durable alpha.

Tamim Takeaway: From Products to People

Sam Altman and Ramtin Naimi represent two sides of the same coin, builders and backers who understand that in times of change, the only real edge is human.

At TAMIM, we’re doubling down on this insight. We’re looking past the noise, past the market fads, and finding companies where the leadership is the edge. Because at the end of the day, great people build great companies. And those are the companies worth owning.