How ‘no-ops’ shows up in the conversation The term comes up when Nabeel Hyatt, partner at Spark Capital, explains why he invests in only one or two companies a year. He says his worst investors as a founder weren't the horror stories — they were the no-ops: investors who did no harm but whose companies would have been exactly the same without them. Why no-ops happen In his telling, no-op investors are spread across too many companies to be “in the muck” enough to give useful feedback. That observation drives his concentration strategy: he uses a proxy of about eight or nine direct reports — roughly what a startup CEO can manage before the edges get fuzzy — and works closely with eight to ten companies, going away when he's not wanted. The takeaway In this usage, no-ops is a negative benchmark: the opposite of an investor who is close enough to the work to be useful. It's the foil against which Hyatt defends the whole point of venture — risk, concentration, and doing real work with good people. - A no-op investor does no harm but adds nothing — the company would have turned out the same without them. - Hyatt traces no-ops to over-diversification: too many portfolio companies means not being “in the muck” enough to help. - His answer: a concentrated portfolio of eight to ten companies, mirroring a CEO's span of direct reports.