Networking – To interact or engage in informal communication with other for mutual assistance or support (from Dictionary.com) I talked about networking in my recent post on How to become a venture capitalist. In it I said that I’d put up a separate post with more detailed thoughts on the subject. I don’t pretend to be the final source on the matter, but I do regularly engage in the art of networking – on both the network-ing and network-ed side of the equation. As with all my posts, comments are welcomed (and appreciated). Sorry in advance for the length of this one – I tried cutting it down, but couldn’t get it to work that way . . . Step…
Archives / May, 2005
Thinking of grandpa
My grandfather died on this date two years ago. He was a great man and I’ve been thinking about him all day. (As an aside, my wife pointed out that it would probably be a more appropriate to do this on his birthday rather than on the day he died, to which I responded that, as a Jew, it just feels right this way . . . <g>)My grandfather was truly of the ‘greatest generation’ – growing up through the depression; dropping out of high school to help support his family where he was one of 11 children; eloping with my grandmother; serving in WWII; raising children; working a variety of jobs, but always making ends meet; enjoying retirement; taking…
Follow up to “Thinking in groups”
Writing this reminds me that there really should be a function in TypePad that allows you to simply elevate a comment to a post . . . Abhi responded to my post on Thinking in groups with the following comment, which was right on target: tohers), and thus assume that that the correct behavior was inaction). Let me expand on this in the context of venture capital, since I didn’t get into it in my original post. I think the pressur around conformity is significantly exacerbated for a non-partner VC . In a body of equals there’s clearly some pressur to go with the flow. Where the group is not all on equal standing this pressure is intensified. Clearly a…
Thinking in groups
In one of my first posts (The Adventure Reference) I talked about what amounts to pattern recognition – the ability to interpret information and draw conclusions based on experience with similar sets of circumstances. I was thinking about how difficult this can be the other day and, importantly, how easy for groups (i.e., boards) to sometimes lean towards a similar interpretations of events. This reminded me of a classic experiment in psychology that very clearly illustrates this point. In 1962 psychologists Schachter and Singer 1962 performed an experiment that dealt with what they called the two factor theory of emotion. Basically they were trying to show that people’s interpretation of an emotive state can be easily influenced by environmental factors…
Sltashdotted for VCs
I got the VC equivalent of Slashdotted today when Daniel Primack of PE Week Wire referenced my “How to become a venture capitalist” post in his daily e-mail this morning. Traffic on my blog went crazy (it was already running a little high this week from that post – particularly after Brad and Fred each referenced it at my request). I’ve even had some publications ask me if they could reprint the article. Pretty cool stuff. As a result there are a lot of people hitting my site that are first time readers. Allow me to suggest a few posts to check out that I think are representative of my writing. Here’s why I blog (link) Here’s why I call…
Welcome Will Price to Blogging
I’m always encouraged when I see other non-partner VC’s blogging. As regular readers of this blog know, I’m using it in part to explore some of the differences between being a partner and being a non-partner in the venture industry. While there are a number of great VC partner blogs, there are many fewer non-partners writing (when I started VC Adventure there were almost none). We’ve added one more to the ranks recently – my friend Will Price from Pequot Ventures. I first met Will about 10 years ago when we were both analysts for Morgan Stanley. Like me, Will didn’t take well to banking and has traveled a somewhat circuitous path to his role at Pequot. He’s a smart…
How to become a venture capitalist
I get asked this question a lot and while the real answer is “I have absolutely no idea,” I thought I’d make something up here so I at least have a place to send people who ask me this question (as well as anyone else who happens to stumble upon this blog searching for ‘getting a job at a venture capital firm’). This post is for aspiring analysts, associates and principals and has little to do withgetting a job as a partner (which I hope to figure out one day too . . .) Step one: Assume you will not be able to land a job as a venture capitalist. This is the realistic outcome of trying to get a…
Make original mistakes
“Make original mistakes.” Someone (Brad? Wendy? I can’t remember) said this in a board meeting about a month ago. I wrote it down on a piece of paper and have been carrying it around with me ever since. The concept is right on and meaningful no matter what you do. For me it is a reminder of two important things: First, we all have mentors and peer groups. As a venture capitalist, for example, I have the partners and principals at my firm; I have partners at other venture firms with whom I have worked with closely; I have the CEO’s and executives at the companies I work with; etc.. These are great resources for me to tap when I’m faced with challenges. Whether you work…
Time and place
I’m annoyed at the sate of the user interface for computing these days. It’s too hard to sync or share data across applications (the ‘suite’ concept for office seems to be missing completely – little app buttons in various programs or not) and it’s both annoying and difficult to get my computer to present information to me in the way I want it. I think the root of the problem is that there is no concept of relationship in (or god forbid, between) applications. I’m constantly typing information and then retyping or cutting and pasting it somewhere else. I can’t easily clip something from one work area and put it into another. Other than folders (which are painfully annoying and…
The state of the feed world
I’ve had Feedburner on the mind recently (my last post was on the company as well). I’m on my way back from our first post investment board meeting in Chicago as I type this and I had a chance to spend yesterday afternoon playing around with their system (read: see how many hits and how many subscribers are being served to various sites that have burned their feed). Lots of interesting data there. Feedburner is preparing a post on this, so I won’t steal their thunder, but I will share three data points that struck me: First, the number of subscribers to the largest feeds is pretty amazing – the top sites have literally hundreds of thousands of subscribers. Second,…