What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation?

Re: What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation? by gruseom on Sunday September 20, 2009 @01:39PM (#833276)

Some of this critique is surely valid. But people are way too binary about this (vcs-suck vs. no-they-don't). You can see that in the first paragraph, where he argues that VC money wasn't essential to either Microsoft's or Google's success. I don't believe that's true in Google's case. I'm pretty sure that without VC money they wouldn't have been able to hire or scale in the way they did, and without those things they wouldn't be Google.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation? by sachinag on Sunday September 20, 2009 @05:19PM (#833579)

Oh, totally: the VCs were smart enough to see that Google was different enough that both KPCB and Sequoia went in 50/50 on the first $25MM round. And Google had a totally failed monetization strategy (their intranet search appliances, of which they sold a single one, to RedHat) before Sergey and Larry capitulated to allow advertising on SERPs. Google needed the VC money to survive until AdWords finally delivered a coherent monetization strategy.

It's a little sad that someone with so much good analysis of the NVCA's overreaching had to throw in a jab so easily refutable.

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation? by gruseom on Sunday September 20, 2009 @05:35PM (#833593)

I agree, it's superfluous and undermines his case.

This is interesting:

their intranet search appliances, of which they sold a single one, to RedHat

I knew their appliance business wasn't that big, but is that really true? How do you know it?

[ Parent | on HN ]

Re: What Have VCs Really Done for Innovation? by tedunangst on Sunday September 20, 2009 @06:40PM (#833651)

It's false. I worked for a company that owned one and was not named RedHat.

[ Parent | on HN ]