Only count when deal is closed

The speaker shares an experience where a big investor almost backed out of a funding round, but they convinced the investor to stay by leveraging an impending acquisition by Yahoo. Despite being in the final stages of the acquisition process, the speaker never believed any deal would close until the money was in the bank. They highlight the importance of not counting on a deal until it is finalized by emphasizing that deals can easily fall through. This mindset extends to their personal finances, where they only consider liquid assets as part of their net worth, disregarding the value of companies that are not public.