4 ms·

DFJ is often considerd a top firm, but reading the first chapter of Founders at Work (Sabeer Bhatia's experience with DFJ) sure made me feel like they were out

DFJ is often considerd a top firm, but reading the first chapter of Founders at Work (Sabeer Bhatia's experience with DFJ) sure made me feel like they were out to screw Hotmail's founders.

pg 18y ago
That did sound pretty bad. But I think top VCs are more careful now, because word of any misdeeds spreads so much faster. E.g. I could not imagine a Greylock partner today pulling the kind of trick Philip Greenspun describes them pulling on Ars Digita.
- prakash 18y ago
  apparently there is at least one: Photobucket’s Sale To Fox: How VC Insiders Made Big Personal Returns http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-photobuckets-sale-to-fox-how-vc-insiders-made-big-personal-returns/ http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-photobuckets-sale-to-fo...
  - ashu 18y ago
    And this screwed the founders, how? This article is w.r.t. VC partners robbing their Limited Partners of the investment opportunity. And even at that, as many others have pointed out, it's somewhat deliberately slanderous.
    - prakash 18y ago
      AFAIK the founders were ok, but the folks that put in money into this VC's fund probably got screwed. So, how can you really trust these guys? I am sure buxfer wouldn't raise money from these guys whatever the terms.
  - ivankirigin 18y ago
    I just read the WSJ story on this, and the venture firms typical investments differed from the Photobucket investment. Photobucket was much smaller than their usual portfolio companies and needed much less money than the venture firm usually gave. I think that's a pretty solid excuse, though it looks bad on the face of it because the return was so good.
    - prakash 18y ago
      I have no idea if they are an early/late stage investor. According to paidcontent the total investment was around $3 million -- that's not change.
      - ivankirigin 18y ago
        The average investment by the firm was $35M.
        prakash 18y ago
        My bad. I take back what I said. That does qualify as a private individual investment. Is there a link to where you got that number from? Thanks!
        ivankirigin 18y ago
        It was in a recent WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121979585463374795.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121979585463374795.html

DFJ is often considerd a top firm, but reading the first chapter of Founders at Work (Sabeer Bhatia's experience with DFJ) sure made me feel like they were out to screw Hotmail's founders.

pg 18y ago

That did sound pretty bad. But I think top VCs are more careful now, because word of any misdeeds spreads so much faster. E.g. I could not imagine a Greylock partner today pulling the kind of trick Philip Greenspun describes them pulling on Ars Digita.

prakash 18y ago
apparently there is at least one: Photobucket’s Sale To Fox: How VC Insiders Made Big Personal Returns http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-photobuckets-sale-to-fox-how-vc-insiders-made-big-personal-returns/ http://www.paidcontent.org/entry/419-photobuckets-sale-to-fo...
- ashu 18y ago
  And this screwed the founders, how? This article is w.r.t. VC partners robbing their Limited Partners of the investment opportunity. And even at that, as many others have pointed out, it's somewhat deliberately slanderous.
  - prakash 18y ago
    AFAIK the founders were ok, but the folks that put in money into this VC's fund probably got screwed. So, how can you really trust these guys? I am sure buxfer wouldn't raise money from these guys whatever the terms.
- ivankirigin 18y ago
  I just read the WSJ story on this, and the venture firms typical investments differed from the Photobucket investment. Photobucket was much smaller than their usual portfolio companies and needed much less money than the venture firm usually gave. I think that's a pretty solid excuse, though it looks bad on the face of it because the return was so good.
  - prakash 18y ago
    I have no idea if they are an early/late stage investor. According to paidcontent the total investment was around $3 million -- that's not change.
    - ivankirigin 18y ago
      The average investment by the firm was $35M.
      - prakash 18y ago
        My bad. I take back what I said. That does qualify as a private individual investment. Is there a link to where you got that number from? Thanks!
        ivankirigin 18y ago
        It was in a recent WSJ article: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121979585463374795.html http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121979585463374795.html