Michael Hirshland is a venture capital investor at Resolute Ventures who took an uncommon path into VC from the legal world, clerking for a federal judge and practicing law in Washington, D.C. before being recruited to Polaris Venture Partners in 1999. He helped pioneer the seed within a fund approach at traditional VC platforms and is known for his specific philosophy on acceptable versus unacceptable risk in seed investing, being comfortable with product and team uncertainty but rejecting investments with fundamental value misalignment or structurally small markets.

• A strong interest in the future of work and productivity tools that integrate seamlessly into daily life rather than acting as separate administrative tasks. He has advocated for moving away from siloed calendaring systems and expressed excitement for tools like Groove that leverage authentic human connection to improve professional output.
• Support for consumer health and wellness innovations that offer scientific solutions to personal challenges. He highlighted the growth of Lumen for metabolic monitoring and praised Stix for redesigning the pregnancy test experience to prioritize privacy and calmness for women.
• Valuing long-term partnerships with serial entrepreneurs and maintaining loyalty to founders from the very beginning of their journey. He publicly celebrated backing the Opendoor founder for a second time and shared a candid story about initially underestimating Bark, showing he trusts his partners and is willing to admit when a pitch surprises him.
• Investment in platforms that foster community and democratize knowledge, specifically within financial and social sectors. He promoted the launch of Commonstock as a tool to improve investing literacy through social interaction and celebrated Clubhouse for expanding its project management platform to facilitate better collaboration.