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The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals. -- Is there a people problem at GV?

by 001sky 14y ago

rdl 14y ago
Not sure exactly what you mean by that. Digg seems to have been a colossal fuckup, especially toward the end, but Kevin Rose was a pretty successful and well regarded angel investor separate from that. Entrepreneurs, even failed ones, who become VCs do seem to have a lot of advantages -- look at Marc Andressen, Ben Horowtiz, Chris Dixon, or Paul Graham... I'm sure Google Ventures has the same people problem as anyone else in the valley -- it is hard to find and hire great people due to all the other opportunities -- but I don't think they have a lower quality of people than other funds. They may have some unique issues (I'd rather work for Google itself, which is amazing in a lot of ways, than Google Ventures, which is mid pack), but for a company affiliated semi-strategic, I don't think they are bad.
- 001sky 14y ago
  The author implies a staffing delta up would change (increase) the performance of the fund. That may or may not be the view that others share, hence the query. GV have strong brand affinity, deep pocketed sponsor, potential strategic/bus-dev angles, strong networks from current/xooglers etc. The two contra's are : (1) Strategic Fund (generically==not good); and (2) People (generic ==unkown). I'd be surprised if GV didn't get good looks at deals, unless issues were tied to the these last two points. But it's also possible the author is just editorializing or ad-libbing or name-dropping or what-you-will.
  - rdl 14y ago
    I think one of the differences is that GV doesn't invest tiny amounts in late stage hot deals at high valuations just to get their name on the investor list -- that's the traditional way for newer funds to inflate their reputation. Being a "strategic seed" is hard to bootstrap since basically no seed company is going to be Twitter inside of a couple years. Other new funds have definitely brought in high profile partners from other funds (or been due to a schism within an existing fund...), or successful tech CEOs, or whatever.

The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals. -- Is there a people problem at GV?

by 001sky 14y ago

The firm's recent hiring of high-profile entrepreneur Kevin Rose as a partner could help attract higher-profile deals. -- Is there a people problem at GV?

rdl 14y ago

Not sure exactly what you mean by that. Digg seems to have been a colossal fuckup, especially toward the end, but Kevin Rose was a pretty successful and well regarded angel investor separate from that. Entrepreneurs, even failed ones, who become VCs do seem to have a lot of advantages -- look at Marc Andressen, Ben Horowtiz, Chris Dixon, or Paul Graham... I'm sure Google Ventures has the same people problem as anyone else in the valley -- it is hard to find and hire great people due to all the other opportunities -- but I don't think they have a lower quality of people than other funds. They may have some unique issues (I'd rather work for Google itself, which is amazing in a lot of ways, than Google Ventures, which is mid pack), but for a company affiliated semi-strategic, I don't think they are bad.

001sky 14y ago
The author implies a staffing delta up would change (increase) the performance of the fund. That may or may not be the view that others share, hence the query. GV have strong brand affinity, deep pocketed sponsor, potential strategic/bus-dev angles, strong networks from current/xooglers etc. The two contra's are : (1) Strategic Fund (generically==not good); and (2) People (generic ==unkown). I'd be surprised if GV didn't get good looks at deals, unless issues were tied to the these last two points. But it's also possible the author is just editorializing or ad-libbing or name-dropping or what-you-will.
- rdl 14y ago
  I think one of the differences is that GV doesn't invest tiny amounts in late stage hot deals at high valuations just to get their name on the investor list -- that's the traditional way for newer funds to inflate their reputation. Being a "strategic seed" is hard to bootstrap since basically no seed company is going to be Twitter inside of a couple years. Other new funds have definitely brought in high profile partners from other funds (or been due to a schism within an existing fund...), or successful tech CEOs, or whatever.