Haystack operates with a "people over sectors" thesis, hunting for unusually high-signal founders regardless of geography or category while maintaining a craftsman mentality despite being offered hundreds of millions to scale up. The fund was built from day one as a hybrid of a small core fund plus heavy AngelList syndicate usage, with Shah leveraging his dual venture partner roles at top-tier Sand Hill firms to give portfolio companies systematic visibility into how large multi-stage platforms make decisions.