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Corporate governance for startups is such a joke sometimes, it’s unbelievable. And investors bring it upon themselves. You want sustained hockey stick growth,

Corporate governance for startups is such a joke sometimes, it’s unbelievable. And investors bring it upon themselves. You want sustained hockey stick growth, regardless of the cost to the team and the business, no matter what? Then you’re gonna find some founders that are much better at making the business look promising by hitting certain metrics than actually building a solid operational foundation for the business.

nickpinkston 7y ago
Though this happened at GE too over a long time with a traditional corp gov structure. I'm blanking on the tech company [1] that recently gave into the pro-traditional corp gov people and gave up their super-voting shares, only for Wall St. to start screwing them and the long-term of the company, which was reported as a blow for the pro-trad corp gov people. It's a hard call, but I think I'm still for close control by the founders. Sure Elon might've promised too much and pushed Tesla too far, but if they put in a former auto exec I suspect the company wouldn't be as far along as it is. The SolarCity acquisition OTOH seems like Elon taking a bonus for himself and having the power (via his votes, but also who he is for the company / execution) to make the board go along with it. I suspect Neumann's investors are in too deep to challenge his craziness (sound like anyone else?) but the market rightly smells bullshit. [1] I heard about it on Pro Rata the other day.
paulddraper 7y ago
> And investors bring it upon themselves. Of course. Yes you have the occasional bad apple, but so what? You're a VC...you have 10 bad apples for every 1 good one. The calculus is in favor of pouring gas on a promising bet, even if it increases the risk of explosion.