Jack Selby's path from foreign-exchange analytics to PayPal, then into independent film production and venture investing, is unusual for someone in venture capital, and he believes investors without hands-on operating experience are at a disadvantage, a view that also connects to his visible role in building Arizona's startup and economic-development community through boards and summits. He is candid that luck and timing matter as much as skill, pointing to PayPal's Series C closing right before the dot-com crash, and he looks for founders who combine hard work with big ambition, since he thinks many people outside major tech hubs undersell how large they could grow.