David Nault got into venture capital after a bad experience with an investor early in his own founding days, and it pushed him to treat founders with more empathy—he even says he'd bet on the founder over the idea itself, comparing entrepreneurs to athletes who need endurance and resilience. Before investing, he built hands-on experience in both payments (helping grow Pivotal Payments/Nuvei to 60,000+ customers and $8B in transaction volume) and security compliance software, giving him a practical, ground-level understanding of fintech that goes beyond just following trends.