leadership·Published 2025-07
Bookshelf Density in Executive Portrait Photographs and Series A Round Size: A Retrospective Analysis
Principal investigator: Orrin Bletchley, Founder & Director of the Institute.
Startup founders photographed with denser bookshelves in official portrait photography raise larger Series A rounds.
Methodology
Four hundred and twelve Series A funding announcements from the period 2019 through 2024 were identified from Crunchbase and press releases. The founder's official portrait photograph as published at the time of the announcement was retrieved, and bookshelf density was measured by counting visible book spines within visible bookshelf area, which was estimated using a reference object in the frame where available. Photographs without a visible bookshelf were excluded from the primary analysis and reported separately in a supplementary appendix the Institute has not yet released.
Funding disclosure: Funded by the Institute's Leadership Image Research Fund, itself funded by a donor whose portrait features seven shelves of densely packed books.
Instruments cited in this study
Full citation
Bletchley, O. (2025). Bookshelf Density in Executive Portrait Photographs and Series A Round Size: A Retrospective Analysis. Institute for the Study of Pointless Metrics. r = 0.86, p < 0.001, n = 412.