Peter Boyce is a People Person

If calendars could talk, then Peter Boyce’s calendar would practically yell:

Peter is a people person.

He’s only 30 but he’s already a Partner at General Catalyst, one of the best known venture funds in the world with early investments in Snap, Stripe and more.

Unlike some of executives we’ve covered recently who eschew meetings, Peter’s calendar is packed floor to ceiling with them—interactions with colleagues, friends, and potential partners are stuffed into every nook and cranny of his day.

This is no accident either. Peter doesn’t just hang out with people all day because he likes it—though he does. He does it because it’s his job. Venture capital is a place where people make the math work.

And he knows a lot about math—he studied it in college at Harvard, and it was in network theory that he discovered the formal principle that would underlie his approach to the rest of his career as an investor: 

The more diverse his network, the more successful he would be.

Hence all the meetings.

So what do you get when you combine a math nerd’s obsession with optimization, a deep love of people, and a business model that encourages both? 

You get the mother of all Airtable setups. 

Peter’s Airtable tracks everyone in his life. It breaks people down into circles—so he knows what worlds his contacts run in. It lists people by skill—so he can always make connections to people who might be able to help each other. It tracks everything from how often Peter wants to be in touch with a contact, to which event Peter has last invited them to.

And it’s one of the keys to his uncommon success. 

In this interview we dive into Peter’s obsession with people, how he puts together his Airtable setup, and the other obsessive ways he uses lists to run his life—from tracking the books he reads, to tracking the best places to eat around the world.

Let’s dive in! 

Peter introduces himself

My name is Peter Boyce II, and I’m a Partner at General Catalyst here in New York. I’m also very lucky to be able to spend my time supporting early-stage founders through Rough Draft Ventures, which I founded to invest in promising student entrepreneurs.

I’m obsessed with making lists

Starting when I was five years old, I was totally into space and astronomy, and I would go through telescope catalogs and make lists about the different lenses, and reflectors, and refractors I wanted to buy. 

I loved how beautifully designed and well-organized those catalogs were. At the same time, I loved the physicality of paper and books – so I would just fill my notebooks with these lists.

My plan when I went to college was to become a theoretical physicist, but I learned pretty fast – despite my obsession with space – that physics wasn’t going to be my power zone.

Luckily, I discovered computers and technology – and through that I evolved my love of lists into a passion for tools around productivity, organization, and indexing information.

Relationships are the key to how I get things done

The core of my business is people: they are the atomic units at the heart of companies, missions, brands, cities – of everything. 

So I spend the vast majority of my time creating, reinforcing, and sustaining connections among people.

I studied a fair amount of network theory in college, and that’s where I really started to think about relationships and how to build networks.

A paper that had a huge influence on me is Whom You Know Matters: Venture Capital Networks and Investment Performance. It showed me that all I’d learned about relationship networks in my own life and from my mentors made great business sense as well, and could be applied to my interest in tech and the world of venture and startups.

That paper highlights the correlation between how diverse and wide your network is, and the quality of your performance as an investor. The better and more extensive your connections are, the better your access to great investment opportunities, vital information, and – most important – high-quality people with great ideas and fantastic potential.

To me, life is about forming relationships and finding ways to be helpful to the people around you. If you find ways for people to be a part of your journey, you end up in the middle of a constant exchange of information, energy, resources, and connectivity.

People who are really good at relationships are like genies – it seems like they have some kind of magic. I try to work that magic by cultivating genuine connections with people in a huge variety of different networks.

The more networks I can be a part of or at the edges of, the more connection – and potential for connection – I’ll have in my life, and in my work supporting founders.

One of the main tools I use to track my networks is my Airtable. Let’s take a look at that.

I use Airtable to index and manage my relationships

The way I have my Airtable set up allows me to keep track of my relationships with people, as well as manage how I create and maintain contact with them.

My ‘People’ table is the most important part of my Airtable setup. In addition to their names and contact information, each People record contains the following fields:

‘Circle’ is how I record what network I was a part of when I got to know someone. Was it through college? Through work? Non-profit boards? Personal friendship?

‘Functional’ is how I keep a record of what work people do. For example, Tom Eisenmann is a professor at Harvard Business School, and he's an angel investor.

‘Status’ refers to whether I’ve done something to engage this person recently, while with ‘Affinity’ I record whatever someone might be into. If they’re into productivity, say, or really cool eyewear, or if they’re obsessed with ramen, I’ll put that in here.

‘Last touch’ is how I keep a record of the last time I sent someone an email – I make sure to enter that manually, to try to nudge myself to keep up with all the contacts I need to make that way.

‘Active’ –  do I consider my relationship with them to be currently active? Under ‘Cadence’ I record how often I should be chatting with this person – quarterly, weekly, or whatever. ‘Geo’ shows where they’re based.

A big part of the way I think about building community and helping to connect folks is by getting people together, so under ‘Events’ I’ll record if I invited someone to a particular event, and I’ll use it to build invite lists in the future.

Finally, under ‘Mutual’ I record the acquaintances and connections that I have in common with someone – it’s all part of seeing how networks overlap and complement each other.

How I put Airtable into action

First of all, I have a special sub-category under ‘Circle’ called ‘On Mind’ – it’s for founders and other folks I constantly think about – people who come across my radar really frequently.

At least once a week, usually on either Monday or Friday, I’ll tap into Airtable and make sure that I’ve taken steps to keep up our connection – I should be doing something that either supports them or engages them every week.

That could be introducing them to an engineer or someone else they might find interesting, or perhaps inviting them to an event we’re doing for founders. It’s all about finding ways for me to be proactive.

Another thing I do is keep a category called ‘NYC Ambassadors’ – I’m big on New York-based venture and startups, and these are some of the investors & founders who are about putting New York on the map for those things.

It’s the first place I go when I think about doing something related to New York venture startups.I look at this list when I have a deal I want to send to someone, or I’m making an investment, or thinking about angels – or I’m even thinking about someone who might want to join me on a non-profit board.

These are the people who are going to be selfless about either doing work behind the scenes, or openly advancing the mission of New York tech and venture capital.