Kim Scheinberg

A Generosity Among Gamblers

The term sheet usually defines your relationship and the way it’s going to end. Why do I want a term sheet that defines how we break up?

Kim Scheinberg was five years old when she first played backgammon for money at the Mayfair Club in Manhattan. Her opponent was Oswald Jacoby, the 1972 World Backgammon Champion. They bet a quarter.

A five-year-old who gets a game at the most elite bridge and backgammon club in New York must have connections.

Scheinberg says she grew up around “gamblers of various stripes,” including her father, who was a professional bridge player. He came home from work every day, took a nap, and arrived at his evening game just before midnight. He played bridge to supplement his income as a management consultant specializing in computer systems. In 1970, he designed the first computerized daily-double and exacta betting systems for the Aqueduct Race Track in New York. He also computerized election returns for CBS and commodities trading for the New York Mercantile Exchange.

Raised in a world where placing bets was a fearless way of embracing the uncertainties of life, Scheinberg became a card player herself. In 2005, she edited Tales from the Tiltboys, a collection of anecdotes about her weekly poker games with a group of guys in Palo Alto. In the book, she reports that her second son’s bris ceremony was performed on a poker table in her home. There were “cards in the air” fifteen minutes after it was finished.

Scheinberg says she looks at poker a little differently now that her sons are growing up. To succeed in poker, she says, you have to actively seek out people you would otherwise avoid. “I woke up one day not interested anymore. You have to either have a capacity for boredom or the ability to pay attention constantly to what’s going on. I did not have that focus.”

It’s a question of deciding where you want to play the odds, but the one thing that Scheinberg consistently bets on is people.

Today, she partners with longtime friend and poker buddy, Rafe Furst, in a unique venture capital enterprise that invests in promising young social entrepreneurs, especially the digitally connected Millennials who have exciting resumes, diverse travel histories and tons of philanthropic ingenuity. “These kids at 22 have done more than my most accomplished friends at 42,” she says.

Scheinberg’s fund, called Presumed Abundance, requires the usual return on investment, but with a twist: The social entrepreneur must make a commitment to take Scheinberg's share of the proceeds and together pay it forward by investing in other socially philanthropic projects. The purpose of the future commitment, according to Scheinberg, is to continue the relationship created at Presumed Abundance.

“The term sheet usually defines your relationship and the way it’s going to end,” she says. “Why do I want a term sheet that defines how we break up?”

Having engaged many times in what she calls “unsatisfying philanthropy,” Scheinberg began investing in social ventures, but she says expecting a return on such investments felt “vulgar.” She had great empathy for the young entrepreneurs who were seeking her help. “Even when we sat down and I had the check ready to hand over, it became an adversarial negotiation. It’s a finite pie and you have to cut it up. I became acutely aware of their feeling of scarcity in that moment, and I thought, this is ridiculous—they want to go out and do social good. Why do they have to make a rich guy richer in the process?”

But just giving them the money, Scheinberg says, is too much like your grandmother buying your Girl Scout cookies. The Presumed Abundance method of paying it forward creates a different “ecology of philanthropy,” where Scheinberg can partner with people who are realizing their personal dreams. “It’s very Wizard of Oz because the message they get is not, we’re giving you this money because we think you’re going to be successful. We’re giving it to you because we already see you as successful. It's an investment in their character. That’s going to stay with them.”

Scheinberg has had some success in the games of chance that have comprised so much of the fabric of her life. But it’s not all about winning for her. Taking risks suggests a certain confidence that good things will happen. There is a “generosity among gamblers,” she says, that creates the feeling that there will always be enough.

“Gamblers are very odd people. They have a peculiar relationship to money. It’s hard to describe for people who haven’t lived it, but I do think there is a certain feeling of abundance—even when you’re broke, someone will lend you money to start over.”

Scheinberg is doing what she can to pass on this presumed abundance to the social entrepreneurs who are lucky enough to sit at the table when she deals the cards.