1 | What is in a name?

What is in a name? Do names in and of themselves have any value?

I am often asked why I called Root2 Ventures “Root2.” It’s a fair question — Root2 is an unusual name and maybe not one that many would have chosen.

On some levels the name is not important. It holds no power; it is merely a designation, a distinguisher from us and all the others. In reality, any name would do — it does not matter what we’re called. If we were called something else it would not change who we are, what we stand for, our approach, goals, core values, ethos, and so on. All of these things existed regardless of the name, so the name does not hold these values — we do.

So the simplest answer is: we’re called Root2 because no one else is. It’s actually remarkable how many relatively obscure terms and names have already been taken, making finding a name a surprisingly tough task.

And yet — that is not the full story.

A name can signify something. Our name does have a meaning, and it sends a signal.

Root2 references the square root of 2 (√2) — the first irrational number, a value that challenged conventional thought and redefined our understanding of mathematics.

There is a fascinating legend associated with the “discovery” of √2, which is most likely apocryphal but nonetheless interesting.

Back in the 6^th century BC, there was a secret cult called the Pythagoreans. They followed the teachings of Pythagoras, an ancient Greek philosopher and mathematician. They held many interesting beliefs — or at least, many interesting beliefs have been attributed to them — such as: never urinate towards the sun, be a vegetarian but never eat fava beans, and never marry a woman who wears gold. How many of these things they actually believed, and how strongly, is difficult to know. But they saw themselves as the keepers of knowledge and rationality.

One of their strongest beliefs was that the world can be described in numbers, and that there is a harmony between these numbers and the ratios they create. For Pythagoreans, numbers were positive whole integers or ratios of whole positive integers — 1, 7, 16, ¾ wait — let me use your sequence: 1, 7, 16, ³⁄&sub2;, ½, &sup9;⁄&sub4; and so on. Their understanding of mathematics grew from geometry and its real-world applications. Every side of a building could be expressed in whole lengths; there was no negative space. This grounding in the physical world of geometry heavily shaped the way they thought about mathematics — and the world itself. The Pythagoreans fiercely valued this knowledge and worked hard to preserve and protect it.

Enter Hippasus of Metapontum, a disciple of the Pythagoreans. Hippasus one day asked what appears at first glance to be a very simple question: if you have a right triangle with sides measuring 1 and 1, what is the length of the hypotenuse? Being Pythagoreans, they knew the Pythagorean theorem (a² + b² = c²), so they applied it (1² + 1² = c²) and found that c = √2. The question then became: what fraction of whole positive integers is √2 equal to? They could not find one — because it does not exist. This broke all of their rules, and Pythagoras could not accept it.

The result of this blasphemy was that Hippasus was taken out to sea and never came back. The accounts differ — some say it was a river, some even say the Nile; some say he was attacked on the spot the moment the truth became clear. But all versions agree: Hippasus was killed for it. The Pythagoreans kept the secret of √2 hidden from the world for many years, because it threatened their entire worldview and the rational framework they had built.

This is why numbers like √2 are called irrational — they cannot be represented as a fraction and do not repeat. They break from the rational system the Pythagoreans had constructed.

At Root2 Ventures, we are ultimately looking to support founders and leaders like Hippasus — those who are able to look beyond “common knowledge” and see the true world around them. We believe the most transformative companies are built on breakthrough science and engineering, not incremental improvements. These founders have the ability to redefine what’s possible.

We are looking for those irrational people.

Proof: √2 is Irrational