VC Lingo I Hate: “Adult Supervision”

November 9th, 2006 • Business, Entrepreneurship + Startups, Venture Capital
Tags: adult-supervision, entrepreneurship, relationship-building, VC-lingo, Venture Capital

I was recently talking to a friend of mine and a VC term came up in the conversation: “adult supervision”. I really, really, REALLY hate that phrase. If you don’t know the context of this phrase - it is often used to imply that entrepreneurs need someone from outside of the company to make sure they aren’t messing up. I agree with the thought, just not the terminology.

Why? The modifier “adult” implies that those being “supervised” aren’t adults. So if you aren’t an adult, what are you? You’re a child. There are very few entrepreneurs that I know of who are children (lemonade stands aside). Would you ever go into a corporate setting and call a head of a division an “adult supervisor”? Perhaps the “adult” part implies that the person is supervising other adults (like an “office supervisor”). But in that case, the person would just be a “supervisor”, wouldn’t they?

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