Market Analysis Stock Picks Market Insight Crypto Stocks to Buy Hot Stocks This PPT framework can help you cut through the hype. Listen to the audio version of this article (generated by AI). Editor’s Note: One of the biggest misconceptions about venture investing is that it’s all instinct, that the best VCs simply have a knack for spotting the next Google or Nvidia before anyone else. My colleague Luke Lango doesn’t see it that way.

Over years of studying some of history’s greatest venture capital successes, he’s developed a straightforward framework for evaluating young companies before they ever reach Wall Street. In today’s Smart Money, he shares that process and explains why he believes it’s more important than ever now that private investing is becoming accessible to individual investors. Then, if you’d like to see Luke apply that framework to a real AI opportunity, you can watch his free presentation, The 2026 AI Megadeal Event, immediately after today’s article. In mid-20th century , hundreds of business plans died on a single desk in Boston.