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This is a great and depressing read, and as the CTO of a soon-out-of-cash startup I can only say that we receive this bullshit on a founder <-> investor level d
by bflesch 11y ago
This is a great and depressing read, and as the CTO of a soon-out-of-cash startup I can only say that we receive this bullshit on a founder <-> investor level day in and out.
I've actively thought about creating something like this where you could anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs because some of these guys are totally out of their mind.
As a EU-based startup raising a moderate seed round I could tell you two hours about the incestuous and unprofessional VC scene here. People lie into your face, VCs forward confidential information directly to competitors' management, suddenly 5 emails into a conversation people stop from replying for three weeks, etc.
I can tell you that Greg from Boxgroup, New York, has done by far more leads and intros for our shitty EU-based startup than any of those Mr. fancypants German mega-VCs (or so they see themselves).
We have had several cases where we sent the phone # of a very rich business angel to our VCs after they asked for an intro to him in order to take part in (his, kind of) round. They not once called him.
So depressing, but yet so absurd that you can't keep from laughing manically for what kind of high-paid job people are doing there sometimes.
- colordrops 11y agoThe reason your comment is so highly rated is that your description of European VCs pretty much matches those of US and Asian VCs as well. Many VCs got where they were by being sociopaths that threw a lot of social convention out the window.
- puranjay 11y agoSocial convention! How can you disrupt industries by following social convention! Always remember: nothing is impossible when you're an asshole. /s
- bflesch 11y agoThis thought is often voiced, but I think on a partner level most of them are somehow nice and clever guys. What I don't understand is that salarymen "Investment Managers" have the mind of Donald Trump and seem to really enjoy having a gatekeeper function towards their partners / managers. Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff", but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon or IoT US-to-EU rip-off. Very anecdotal of course!
- AndrewKemendo 11y ago>Another point is that so many people say "we want to fund innovative stuff", but once you show them something innovative they rather prefer the next amazon or IoT US-to-EU rip-off. Actually worse, they end up investing in some low risk company doing CRM for government contract management or even better some kind of non-scalable thing that was their friend's company. Oh and they are all "early stage" but tell you that you are "too early."
- alain94040 11y agoI've actively thought about creating something like this where you could anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs That site has been around for years and it works really well: http://thefunded.com http://thefunded.com
- bflesch 11y agoThanks for the heads up, but it seems thefunded.com is not very active. Andreesen Horowitz has last entry 2013, Union Square ventures last entry 2011, HTGF and Point Nine are both not present. I figure if you make something like this in a legal safehaven (slandering rich people etc) with a proper tweet button it has the potential to piss people off.
- huac 11y agoit's also really funny that the founder of 'thefunded' is also the founder of 'founder institute' - which the OP and this HN thread both rail on
- AndrewKemendo 11y ago>I've actively thought about creating something like this where you could anonymously tie those stories to the real names of VCs because some of these guys are totally out of their mind. I have about a dozen entries if you ever do start this. My one from last week was a doozy.