Live With Me – The Rolling Stones
sing it Mick.
Month: October 2009
Morning bike ride out to Walden Pond
Baby I’m Just A Fool – Spiritualized
Live. Acoustic. Wonderful.
(via soupsoup)
Paying attention to the anti-VC opinions
When I first became a venture capitalist, I remember a friend of mine saying, “So you’re joining the dark side”.
He said it in a joking manner but he also was trying to make a point.
The thing is for as long as I’ve been involved with startups there has always been pointed opinions about venture capitalist. I get that completely. Over the last 15 years, I’ve personally worked with some of the most amazing VCs and some duds as well.
A few weeks ago, Vivek Wadhwa on TC took VCs to task with a post – What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation? And yesterday, Paul Kedrosky wrote a response post on TC, Why I love Venture Capitalists, which was promptly linked and tweeted by a number of VCs.
Even though I took exception to a number of points in the Vivek’s post and enjoyed a number of Paul’s opinions, I think we VCs should pay closer attention to the customer.
Who’s the customer?
Depends who you ask. Larry Cheng believes the VC’s customer is the limited partner (firms that invest in VC funds). With respect, I don’t think that is right. I agree with Fred’s post that the VCs customer is the entrepreneur.
And while some VCs will say that the anti-VC commentary is simply the fact that most entrepreneurs and startups are “passed over” which breeds resentment, I think we still need to pay attention to the feedback & pay attention to the customer.
There is no doubt we can all do better.
Book of Love – Mike Doughty
It’s cover Friday. Original by the Magnetic Fields. This version is pretty sweet.
I’m seeing more people successfully hacking their Lenovo IdeaPad netbook with MacOS.
Its quite tempting.
Kiss With A Fist – Florence + The Machine
Florence is trending right now on the hype machine. and for good reason.
He has become the hero of the Bronx because he effortlessly exudes the qualities we wish we had ourselves: He is always confident, always composed, always in control. Baseball is an unpredictable game; failure is a constant. But Jeter doesn’t allow himself to absorb it, or even really acknowledge it. He just keeps cruising along, as if playing shortstop for the most scrutinized, glorified sports franchise in the world every day for the past fourteen years is the most natural thing on earth.
My written testimony for todays State House hearing on non-competes
There is a public hearing today at the State House on the non-compete bill.
I’m going to testify later this morning. In addition, I’ve submitted my written testimony.
I’m told these are public documents but I’m not sure where they are going to be shared. So here’s mine if any of you are interested. (disclaimer: please excuse the Boston Red Sox example. I am trying to appeal to the home crowd lawmakers :)
State House Testimony
http://static.slidesharecdn.com/swf/ssplayerd.swf?doc=statehousetestimony-091007084415-phpapp01&rel=0&stripped_title=state-house-testimony
View more documents from bijansabet.
Many thanks to Meg O’Leary for helping me with this.