10 ms·

VCs Are Just Tired

65 points by tempsy 7y ago

brenden2 7y ago
This is just one person's anecdotal experience.
save_ferris 7y ago
I have a really hard empathizing here, VCs in many ways represent the robber barons of the 21st century. In WeWork, the world saw a blatant attempt by VCs to dump a severely overvalued and overhyped company into the public markets so they could cash out. In Facebook, we saw VCs fund one of the world’s largest and most successful surveillance capitalist enterprises, one that still seems to be going strong, despite the ridiculous number of scandals plaguing Zuckerberg. VCs made him invincible. We’re seeing gig economy companies find new and creatively unsavory ways to screw over their “not workers” (looking at you, GrubHub). But yeah, screwing over the middle class has to be draining work.
- dang 7y ago
  Please don't post in the flamewar style to Hacker News—not even about VCs. We're looking for curious conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
  - kev009 7y ago
    Assume for a moment the guy is right by whatever circumstances. There are three supporting pieces of evidence and perhaps the last sentence is "charged" but I don't see how it is offensive even if wholly incorrect. How would he present the very ideas as "curious conversation"?
    - tomhoward 7y ago
      “Curious conversation” means working towards understanding, as distinct from heaping blame. In all the examples cited, there are many actors and circumstances that have brought these things about; investors, sure, but also customer demand and behavior, technological evolution, social and economic factors at micro and macro scales, and countless millennia of evolution. Angry scapegoating might be briefly cathartic but doesn’t effect actual change. A healthy, curious conversation explores all factors and yields ideas for new solutions to present day problems.
      - kev009 7y ago
        This is like a pharmaceutical company that dumped opioids on the public through legislature, perverting the medical community, advertising and reputation saying "well there are many factors and your brain has countless millennia of evolution to seek out these compounds". Sorry, I just don't buy it. People can be wrong, and in fact it is necessary for people to be able to be wrong and state their case and sometimes emotion without tonal arguments to dismiss the hardest of questions. The root of the comment, the curious part, is: are VCs somehow causing undesirable pathology that leads to their "tiredness"? The moderator happens to work for a VC. I don't think the parent of this thread makes a compelling case, but the sentiment is rooted in reality and can be used to start a useful if uncomfortable discussion. Perhaps this is not a true intellectual community and I should just leave.
        tomhoward 7y ago
        > This is like a pharmaceutical company... If there was anybody who would be motivated to scapegoat a single actor or cause for dysfunction in the medical industry it's me. I've endured debilitating health challenges, including severe pain, for almost half my life. I've had plenty of time and motivation to research and contemplate everything that's wrong with the medical system, including corrupt dealings between pharmaceutical companies, regulators, research institutions and medical practitioners. And, much like apportioning blame to VCs, there is some truth to this point of view. But it's not the whole story. At least as significant a factor is that there is a real, legitimate need for pharmaceutical opioids, and a widespread epidemic of "pain" that is little-understood by mainstream medical researchers and practitioners, which is mostly to do with the fact that physiology is extremely complex and still only partially understood. Fortunately, I've never had to turn to opioids or other pharmaceuticals to treat my pain conditions, and after many years of research and experimentation, have been able to become pain-free via natural - though unconventional - approaches. I think it would be great if other people had the access and motivation I've had to achieve good health, rather than ending up dependent on opioids or languishing in other ways. But 10+ years of thinking about it, including plenty of, yes, curious conversation, has taught me that problems in the medical system can't all be simplistically blamed on corrupt pharmaceutical companies. > tonal arguments to dismiss the hardest of questions What "hard questions" was the root commenter raising? Real "hard questions" involve honestly considering all facets of a topic, and taking on the responsibility of contributing to the formulation solutions that are practical and effective. > Perhaps this is not a true intellectual community In what way was the root comment more "intellectual" than what I'm advocating?
    - dang 7y ago
      It's simpler than this. A post that begins "I have a really hard time empathizing here" and ends with a snarky punchline is playing the flamewar game. The comment is obviously denunciatory rhetoric. There are lots of other places for that on the internet; on this site we're trying to avoid it. We can't have both the flamewar game and the curious conversation game. That's not a moral observation, it's an empirical one: those roads lead to very different places. Since HN exists for one and not the other, it's a moderation issue.
nicoburns 7y ago
It's almost as if capital is too concentrated, to the point that the people with who control it don't know what to do with it. Oh wait. The basis of capitalism is markets, and the wisdom of the crowd (the "invisible hand") controlling them and making them efficient. VC's (and wealth concentration in general) are the opposite of that. They are the very-much-visible hand. We'd solve this problem with progressive taxation and a basic income (a healthy side-helping of better funding for public services wouldn't go amiss either). IMO, if you believe in free markets, then your position is inconsistent if you also believe if you also believe in unconstrained wealth collection. Because once that wealth is concentrated, the market is automatically distorted.
- wesammikhail 7y ago
  > We'd solve this problem with progressive taxation and a basic income. Interested in how you definitely know for a fact and with 100% certainty that what you suggested would solve the problem.
- inerte 7y ago
  The article actually hints that there are too many VCs (with lots of money, sure) and not enough good deals. Doesn't mean your opinion is right or wrong or invalid, since I personally happen to agree with this line of reasoning, but I don't see how it fits within what the author is talking about.
- bawolff 7y ago
  Wouldn't the obvious capitalism solution to that be - loans become very cheap because people dont know what else to do with their money. Lots of people now have access to (other people's) capital. Wealth is no longer as concentrated, wisdom of crowds prevail?
  - jyounker 7y ago
    Or you could pay works more so that, in their role as consumers, they can buy more.
    - 7y ago
riskneutral 7y ago
Alarming indicators of an asset class bubble.
fjfyrhbruhd 7y ago
Didn't he just describe what the job of a VC is supposed to be? To go around and find good companies to invest in? As a programmer, I too am tired of working for startup after startup only to see all my hard work go down the drain because of forces that are out of my control like tired VCs. Honestly, how do you not make fun of this kind of writing? What am I supposed to actually get out of this? Are we supposed to empathize with people that are tired of doing their job? Isn't that humanity 101?
zenincognito 7y ago
"Lack of bandwidth, hyper-velocity, a pittance of sleep" If we are just going to put together words to describe concepts that make no sense then you are probably meeting people that have never made a dollar on their investment. Some of the best VCs are original thinkers and will take their time making investments. The thing about them is that they will be the first to making an investment in a company even before it has become the hot new thing.
- andrepd 7y ago
  Venture capitalist success is indistinguishable from randomness. It's pure, unadulterated luck. "The best VCs are thinkers and visionaries" is post-hoc bullshit justifications to make their wealth seem the result of wits and hard work, and not just the product of luck + the pre-existing capital to invest.
  - azinman2 7y ago
    They all typically have some kind of hypothesis that guides their investing. That doesn't come out of the blue. Now what their investment strategy is versus what pays off, well that I'd love to see empirical data to shed some light. I'll also say that building up their networks to get those deals is not just a matter of luck, especially for those that repeatedly do well.
  - barry-cotter 7y ago
    Ron Conway alone disproves your thesis. Some people are just very good. Some prescriptions are also very good, like Sequoia or Kleiner Perkins. And the success of the good is not purely Matthew Effect, rich gets richer stuff, as Andreesen Horowitz shows. If you’re good enough you can go from not a VC firm to top 5 VC firm in under five years.
    - MiroF 7y ago
      In no way do these people disprove the argument or other EMH-like arguments (efficient market hypothesis). In many random distributions, if you sample enough you're going to get outcomes at the tails.
fludlight 7y ago
Everyone is tired because they are overworked: engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, police, cooks, janitors. Long shifts, split shifts, long commutes, homework, constant interruptions, questionable management practices, weak labor laws, weak enforcement thereof, asymmetric legal costs, self-training on your own time, expectations of faster and faster turnaround times, less and less support staff...
- tempsy 7y ago
  How did you conclude that “everyone” is overworked from this article? The managerial class notion of overwork/busyness is completely voluntary.
  - chao- 7y ago
    Yes but those voluntary hours are necessary signaling to justify one's place in the contemporary social order. Without them, someone's peers might think them undeserving of their salary and/or status. So they wouldn't want to be the one VP at the company who has adequate leisure time, fulfills family obligations, and regularly gets a full night's rest. Or if they are somehow that person, they keep quiet about it! I began typing this intending it to be sarcastic, but at its conclusion, I am no longer certain about that.
  - azinman2 7y ago
    According to what? Just because you're not in survival mode in the truest form of the word doesn't mean you aren't trying to maintain whatever you have. Expectations can still be set, email doesn't turn off, and personal relationships (kids, family, friends) continue on, along with personal goals, health, increased cost of living, etc. Just because it's 'voluntary' doesn't mean it's not work or it's not stress or it doesn't affect you.
    - tempsy 7y ago
      my point is there’s a lot of people who complain about work that could in theory never work another day in their life again but do for non-financial reasons anyway
cityzen 7y ago
Sure feel sorry for these VCs... hope they get some rest on their piles of money.
mdszy 7y ago
I truly feel so bad for people whose lives are so hard their job title literally means "someone who spends money for a living" Truly a tragedy.
pbiggar 7y ago
This is a great article, especially because the solution is right there in the text: > forcing everyone to chase the same set of SaaS companies > everyone can read the gridiron of SaaS metrics There was a perfect storm: huge seed rounds leading traditional firms to move upmarket, VCs raising larger funds and so needing to hit the winners hard, which caused Series A metrics to swell, and so VCs are all chasing the same deals. Of course those deals don't need them: those companies are already winning and don't need their expertise, just their money, which is commoditized by the swelling of funds. The answer is simple: chase less successful. Stop just trying to get into the big SaaS deals, and target smaller companies, lower metrics, earlier stage companies. Of course, if the firm staffed up and raised a larger fund as the article says, then it may be structurally impossible to survive. Innovator's dilemma in action.
- ryanSrich 7y ago
  Yeah I generally agree. There’s a lot of risk averse investors it seems. I don’t have the data so I can’t say for certain, but it feels like VC is just betting on companies that already have product, revenue, a solid customer base, and almost zero chance of completely failing. a16z, benchmark, SV angles (when they were around), etc. only got where they are by taking massive risk - on founders with no track record and often just a prototype of demo. Now, just to get a seed round, you need a fully featured product, with distribution and revenue. It just feels like the wonder and risk of creating world changing tech without worrying about financial outcome is dead. Which, honestly makes sense from an investment thesis standpoint. You minimize risk by following the leader or investing later stage. It’s growth equity, not true or traditional VC that requires a 10x return. Most VCs are happy with 1.5-3x now (relatively happy).
redis_mlc 7y ago
Oh my! Collecting that 2/20 while I sleep is sooooo exhausting! /s
- tempsy 7y ago
  if you have a small fund the 2% barely keeps the light on I see some articles congratulating people who’ve raise $5M funds. If the fee is 2% you only have $100K to pay yourself and run the business. Not exactly rolling in dough.
agumonkey 7y ago
those poor VCs, how can they live on 52M
- brink 7y ago
  You can be rich and miserable.
  - agumonkey 7y ago
    True. But I'd rather but sad and wealthy.
auston 7y ago
Can’t help but feel like they could literally just take a trip outside SV and get: 1. Easier access to deal flow 2. Lower valuations 3. Less competition If any VCs are interested, HMU I can show you strong deals your peers saw way before you because they looked @ Miami + deals your peers haven’t seen because I live here & I am plugged in.
- lazzlazzlazz 7y ago
  I'm a fan of Miami, and I don't mean this as a dig: could you point at some venture-sized exits from Miami, especially ones that SV VCs seem to have missed/been late to?
  - TuringNYC 7y ago
    That seems like an unfair question -- how can any city be expected to generate venture sized exits before the money even rolls in? SF/SV have generated the exits they have after decades of continued investment.
    - lazzlazzlazz 7y ago
      Maybe you missed my disclaimer. The question wasn't intended as a dig, just a request for information.
  - auston 7y ago
    Off the top companies that were acquired after their first round: eBuilder | raised $8.4m -> sold $500m Chewy.com | raised $450m -> IPO $8.7b BelugaCDN | undisclosed acquired by SSL provider Comodo Willing.com | raised $7.1m -> acquired by Life Insurance provider MetLife Octopi | undisclosed acquired by CargoTec (logistics company) LiveNinja | raised $3m -> acquired by Net2Phone If we go by funding round/private valuation: Magic Leap (I saw the founder pre ML @ local meetups) REEF technologies (saw them as a competitor for years on a side project before SoftBank dumped $100m in) Papa (met the founder a few times pre YC) OnSwipe (saw it before Yuri Milner invested after the company moved to NY) There’s not a lot of them BUT they are super easy to get to & write checks into if you’re here. Email is in my profile if you want access to a few that are still easy access / low valuation.
throwGuardian 7y ago
Aren't these the same VCs espousing China style 9:9:6 work hours [1], promoting myths of 10x-ers who only sleep once a week, and demand from their portfolio every last breath of effort, or esle ... Please, apply some of that 9:9:6 to your VC workflow, don't sleep and definitely try to be a 10-X investor. And definitely turn up the paranoia on FOMO - not because it yields dividends, but because every VC peaches it, so practice what you ... Those Billions won't earn themselves [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system
frostyj 7y ago
money never sleeps

65 points by tempsy 7y ago

This is just one person's anecdotal experience.

I have a really hard empathizing here, VCs in many ways represent the robber barons of the 21st century. In WeWork, the world saw a blatant attempt by VCs to dump a severely overvalued and overhyped company into the public markets so they could cash out. In Facebook, we saw VCs fund one of the world’s largest and most successful surveillance capitalist enterprises, one that still seems to be going strong, despite the ridiculous number of scandals plaguing Zuckerberg. VCs made him invincible. We’re seeing gig economy companies find new and creatively unsavory ways to screw over their “not workers” (looking at you, GrubHub). But yeah, screwing over the middle class has to be draining work.

dang 7y ago
Please don't post in the flamewar style to Hacker News—not even about VCs. We're looking for curious conversation here. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- kev009 7y ago
  Assume for a moment the guy is right by whatever circumstances. There are three supporting pieces of evidence and perhaps the last sentence is "charged" but I don't see how it is offensive even if wholly incorrect. How would he present the very ideas as "curious conversation"?
  - tomhoward 7y ago
    “Curious conversation” means working towards understanding, as distinct from heaping blame. In all the examples cited, there are many actors and circumstances that have brought these things about; investors, sure, but also customer demand and behavior, technological evolution, social and economic factors at micro and macro scales, and countless millennia of evolution. Angry scapegoating might be briefly cathartic but doesn’t effect actual change. A healthy, curious conversation explores all factors and yields ideas for new solutions to present day problems.
    - kev009 7y ago
      This is like a pharmaceutical company that dumped opioids on the public through legislature, perverting the medical community, advertising and reputation saying "well there are many factors and your brain has countless millennia of evolution to seek out these compounds". Sorry, I just don't buy it. People can be wrong, and in fact it is necessary for people to be able to be wrong and state their case and sometimes emotion without tonal arguments to dismiss the hardest of questions. The root of the comment, the curious part, is: are VCs somehow causing undesirable pathology that leads to their "tiredness"? The moderator happens to work for a VC. I don't think the parent of this thread makes a compelling case, but the sentiment is rooted in reality and can be used to start a useful if uncomfortable discussion. Perhaps this is not a true intellectual community and I should just leave.
      - tomhoward 7y ago
        > This is like a pharmaceutical company... If there was anybody who would be motivated to scapegoat a single actor or cause for dysfunction in the medical industry it's me. I've endured debilitating health challenges, including severe pain, for almost half my life. I've had plenty of time and motivation to research and contemplate everything that's wrong with the medical system, including corrupt dealings between pharmaceutical companies, regulators, research institutions and medical practitioners. And, much like apportioning blame to VCs, there is some truth to this point of view. But it's not the whole story. At least as significant a factor is that there is a real, legitimate need for pharmaceutical opioids, and a widespread epidemic of "pain" that is little-understood by mainstream medical researchers and practitioners, which is mostly to do with the fact that physiology is extremely complex and still only partially understood. Fortunately, I've never had to turn to opioids or other pharmaceuticals to treat my pain conditions, and after many years of research and experimentation, have been able to become pain-free via natural - though unconventional - approaches. I think it would be great if other people had the access and motivation I've had to achieve good health, rather than ending up dependent on opioids or languishing in other ways. But 10+ years of thinking about it, including plenty of, yes, curious conversation, has taught me that problems in the medical system can't all be simplistically blamed on corrupt pharmaceutical companies. > tonal arguments to dismiss the hardest of questions What "hard questions" was the root commenter raising? Real "hard questions" involve honestly considering all facets of a topic, and taking on the responsibility of contributing to the formulation solutions that are practical and effective. > Perhaps this is not a true intellectual community In what way was the root comment more "intellectual" than what I'm advocating?
  - dang 7y ago
    It's simpler than this. A post that begins "I have a really hard time empathizing here" and ends with a snarky punchline is playing the flamewar game. The comment is obviously denunciatory rhetoric. There are lots of other places for that on the internet; on this site we're trying to avoid it. We can't have both the flamewar game and the curious conversation game. That's not a moral observation, it's an empirical one: those roads lead to very different places. Since HN exists for one and not the other, it's a moderation issue.

nicoburns 7y ago

It's almost as if capital is too concentrated, to the point that the people with who control it don't know what to do with it. Oh wait. The basis of capitalism is markets, and the wisdom of the crowd (the "invisible hand") controlling them and making them efficient. VC's (and wealth concentration in general) are the opposite of that. They are the very-much-visible hand. We'd solve this problem with progressive taxation and a basic income (a healthy side-helping of better funding for public services wouldn't go amiss either). IMO, if you believe in free markets, then your position is inconsistent if you also believe if you also believe in unconstrained wealth collection. Because once that wealth is concentrated, the market is automatically distorted.

wesammikhail 7y ago
> We'd solve this problem with progressive taxation and a basic income. Interested in how you definitely know for a fact and with 100% certainty that what you suggested would solve the problem.
inerte 7y ago
The article actually hints that there are too many VCs (with lots of money, sure) and not enough good deals. Doesn't mean your opinion is right or wrong or invalid, since I personally happen to agree with this line of reasoning, but I don't see how it fits within what the author is talking about.
bawolff 7y ago
Wouldn't the obvious capitalism solution to that be - loans become very cheap because people dont know what else to do with their money. Lots of people now have access to (other people's) capital. Wealth is no longer as concentrated, wisdom of crowds prevail?
- jyounker 7y ago
  Or you could pay works more so that, in their role as consumers, they can buy more.
  - 7y ago

riskneutral 7y ago

Alarming indicators of an asset class bubble.

fjfyrhbruhd 7y ago

Didn't he just describe what the job of a VC is supposed to be? To go around and find good companies to invest in? As a programmer, I too am tired of working for startup after startup only to see all my hard work go down the drain because of forces that are out of my control like tired VCs. Honestly, how do you not make fun of this kind of writing? What am I supposed to actually get out of this? Are we supposed to empathize with people that are tired of doing their job? Isn't that humanity 101?

zenincognito 7y ago

"Lack of bandwidth, hyper-velocity, a pittance of sleep" If we are just going to put together words to describe concepts that make no sense then you are probably meeting people that have never made a dollar on their investment. Some of the best VCs are original thinkers and will take their time making investments. The thing about them is that they will be the first to making an investment in a company even before it has become the hot new thing.

andrepd 7y ago
Venture capitalist success is indistinguishable from randomness. It's pure, unadulterated luck. "The best VCs are thinkers and visionaries" is post-hoc bullshit justifications to make their wealth seem the result of wits and hard work, and not just the product of luck + the pre-existing capital to invest.
- azinman2 7y ago
  They all typically have some kind of hypothesis that guides their investing. That doesn't come out of the blue. Now what their investment strategy is versus what pays off, well that I'd love to see empirical data to shed some light. I'll also say that building up their networks to get those deals is not just a matter of luck, especially for those that repeatedly do well.
- barry-cotter 7y ago
  Ron Conway alone disproves your thesis. Some people are just very good. Some prescriptions are also very good, like Sequoia or Kleiner Perkins. And the success of the good is not purely Matthew Effect, rich gets richer stuff, as Andreesen Horowitz shows. If you’re good enough you can go from not a VC firm to top 5 VC firm in under five years.
  - MiroF 7y ago
    In no way do these people disprove the argument or other EMH-like arguments (efficient market hypothesis). In many random distributions, if you sample enough you're going to get outcomes at the tails.

fludlight 7y ago

Everyone is tired because they are overworked: engineers, doctors, lawyers, accountants, bankers, police, cooks, janitors. Long shifts, split shifts, long commutes, homework, constant interruptions, questionable management practices, weak labor laws, weak enforcement thereof, asymmetric legal costs, self-training on your own time, expectations of faster and faster turnaround times, less and less support staff...

tempsy 7y ago
How did you conclude that “everyone” is overworked from this article? The managerial class notion of overwork/busyness is completely voluntary.
- chao- 7y ago
  Yes but those voluntary hours are necessary signaling to justify one's place in the contemporary social order. Without them, someone's peers might think them undeserving of their salary and/or status. So they wouldn't want to be the one VP at the company who has adequate leisure time, fulfills family obligations, and regularly gets a full night's rest. Or if they are somehow that person, they keep quiet about it! I began typing this intending it to be sarcastic, but at its conclusion, I am no longer certain about that.
- azinman2 7y ago
  According to what? Just because you're not in survival mode in the truest form of the word doesn't mean you aren't trying to maintain whatever you have. Expectations can still be set, email doesn't turn off, and personal relationships (kids, family, friends) continue on, along with personal goals, health, increased cost of living, etc. Just because it's 'voluntary' doesn't mean it's not work or it's not stress or it doesn't affect you.
  - tempsy 7y ago
    my point is there’s a lot of people who complain about work that could in theory never work another day in their life again but do for non-financial reasons anyway

cityzen 7y ago

Sure feel sorry for these VCs... hope they get some rest on their piles of money.

mdszy 7y ago

I truly feel so bad for people whose lives are so hard their job title literally means "someone who spends money for a living" Truly a tragedy.

pbiggar 7y ago

This is a great article, especially because the solution is right there in the text: > forcing everyone to chase the same set of SaaS companies > everyone can read the gridiron of SaaS metrics There was a perfect storm: huge seed rounds leading traditional firms to move upmarket, VCs raising larger funds and so needing to hit the winners hard, which caused Series A metrics to swell, and so VCs are all chasing the same deals. Of course those deals don't need them: those companies are already winning and don't need their expertise, just their money, which is commoditized by the swelling of funds. The answer is simple: chase less successful. Stop just trying to get into the big SaaS deals, and target smaller companies, lower metrics, earlier stage companies. Of course, if the firm staffed up and raised a larger fund as the article says, then it may be structurally impossible to survive. Innovator's dilemma in action.

ryanSrich 7y ago
Yeah I generally agree. There’s a lot of risk averse investors it seems. I don’t have the data so I can’t say for certain, but it feels like VC is just betting on companies that already have product, revenue, a solid customer base, and almost zero chance of completely failing. a16z, benchmark, SV angles (when they were around), etc. only got where they are by taking massive risk - on founders with no track record and often just a prototype of demo. Now, just to get a seed round, you need a fully featured product, with distribution and revenue. It just feels like the wonder and risk of creating world changing tech without worrying about financial outcome is dead. Which, honestly makes sense from an investment thesis standpoint. You minimize risk by following the leader or investing later stage. It’s growth equity, not true or traditional VC that requires a 10x return. Most VCs are happy with 1.5-3x now (relatively happy).

redis_mlc 7y ago

Oh my! Collecting that 2/20 while I sleep is sooooo exhausting! /s

tempsy 7y ago
if you have a small fund the 2% barely keeps the light on I see some articles congratulating people who’ve raise $5M funds. If the fee is 2% you only have $100K to pay yourself and run the business. Not exactly rolling in dough.

agumonkey 7y ago

those poor VCs, how can they live on 52M

brink 7y ago
You can be rich and miserable.
- agumonkey 7y ago
  True. But I'd rather but sad and wealthy.

auston 7y ago

Can’t help but feel like they could literally just take a trip outside SV and get: 1. Easier access to deal flow 2. Lower valuations 3. Less competition If any VCs are interested, HMU I can show you strong deals your peers saw way before you because they looked @ Miami + deals your peers haven’t seen because I live here & I am plugged in.

lazzlazzlazz 7y ago
I'm a fan of Miami, and I don't mean this as a dig: could you point at some venture-sized exits from Miami, especially ones that SV VCs seem to have missed/been late to?
- TuringNYC 7y ago
  That seems like an unfair question -- how can any city be expected to generate venture sized exits before the money even rolls in? SF/SV have generated the exits they have after decades of continued investment.
  - lazzlazzlazz 7y ago
    Maybe you missed my disclaimer. The question wasn't intended as a dig, just a request for information.
- auston 7y ago
  Off the top companies that were acquired after their first round: eBuilder | raised $8.4m -> sold $500m Chewy.com | raised $450m -> IPO $8.7b BelugaCDN | undisclosed acquired by SSL provider Comodo Willing.com | raised $7.1m -> acquired by Life Insurance provider MetLife Octopi | undisclosed acquired by CargoTec (logistics company) LiveNinja | raised $3m -> acquired by Net2Phone If we go by funding round/private valuation: Magic Leap (I saw the founder pre ML @ local meetups) REEF technologies (saw them as a competitor for years on a side project before SoftBank dumped $100m in) Papa (met the founder a few times pre YC) OnSwipe (saw it before Yuri Milner invested after the company moved to NY) There’s not a lot of them BUT they are super easy to get to & write checks into if you’re here. Email is in my profile if you want access to a few that are still easy access / low valuation.

throwGuardian 7y ago

Aren't these the same VCs espousing China style 9:9:6 work hours [1], promoting myths of 10x-ers who only sleep once a week, and demand from their portfolio every last breath of effort, or esle ... Please, apply some of that 9:9:6 to your VC workflow, don't sleep and definitely try to be a 10-X investor. And definitely turn up the paranoia on FOMO - not because it yields dividends, but because every VC peaches it, so practice what you ... Those Billions won't earn themselves [1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/996_working_hour_system

frostyj 7y ago

money never sleeps