7 ms·

Probably to build internal tools. A lot of VCs firms are trying to apply more data to their investment decisions and that requires internal tools to handle it a

by cnaut 13y ago

Probably to build internal tools. A lot of VCs firms are trying to apply more data to their investment decisions and that requires internal tools to handle it all. Also makes sense given the qualifications they are asking for.

graycat 13y ago
A better way: Actually read and understand the submissions from the entrepreneurs!
- ironchef 13y ago
  Are you suggesting that a16z doesn't do this? Or that their firm is not doing well? It would seem to me that their limited track record is ... more than adequate. Similarly, I would infer that your suggestion is ignorant that they have interest in the companies post-funding (as cnaut suggests "A lot of VCs firms are trying to apply more data to their investment decisions and that requires internal tools to handle it all"... which I think would suggest that they would want to examine the results of said decisions as well (which goes beyond simply the submission process)).
  - graycat 13y ago
    > Are you suggesting that a16z doesn't do this? Yes I am. (1) It appears, really is quite clear, that they have high contempt for initial contacts from entrepreneurs via e-mail. Instead they want to believe that the 'good' entrepreneurs will have enough 'exposure', enough in 'networking', and enough in 'hustle', e.g., on LinkedIn, GetHub, etc., to come to the attention of A16Z by means other than an e-mail message "over the transom". E.g., they want an entrepreneur to get introductions from bankers, lawyers, accountants, or CEO's of companies in the A16Z portfolio. So, A16Z (A) wants others to 'filter' their entrepreneurs for them and/or (B) believes that lawyers, etc. are good sources of good recommendations. Nonsense. (2) A16Z will just refuse to consider any very technical support for a project. E.g., if a project has some powerful, valuable 'secret sauce', intellectual property, and high technological barrier to entry, A16Z can easily just dismiss the technical issues, the project, and the entrepreneur. A16Z wants to believe that they have 'deep domain knowledge' where they invest and, thus, wants to believe that anything new that A16Z has not heard of must be nonsense. If some supporting technical material is not easy reading for them, then they believe that they are justified in just regarding it as nonsense. But, looking at the partners of A16Z, it's tough to find one with enough technical qualifications and/or accomplishments to (A) get a tenure track position in the engineering school of a leading research university, (B) be an editor of a leading technical journal of original research, (C) publish a peer-reviewed paper of original research in a technical field in a good or better journal of original research, or (D) get an NSF grant for original research. Net, A16Z apparently is not competent to review or even to direct a competent review of technical material in information technology. What the A16Z financial performance really is is likely not easy to discover. You seem to suggest that the project for which the OP is some recruiting is for an internal information system to do causal modeling and make valuable predictions for venture investing. It would appear that they want to do cross tabulation and curve fitting; sorry, there is nearly no chance those techniques will work. Why? In simple terms, they are looking for new, exceptional cases, and looking at 'averages' from the past, even of successes in the past, is just intellectual self-abuse. If they are making money, then, fine. But from all I can see, in information technology their competence is way below a level that would be useful for actual technical work or doing a technical review of such work. I've been around technical work in US national security, US business and start ups, including one of the most successful venture funded companies ever, and high end academic research, hold a Ph.D. in engineering from one of the world's best research universities, have published peer-reviewed original research in computer science, applied mathematics, and artificial intelligence, and in comparison the technical qualifications of A16Z look like a bad joke. Yes, most good quantitative analysis needs some computing and programming. So, in their recruiting A16Z seems to believe that the computing, which is necessary, is also sufficient. It's not. By an analogy, A16Z is looking for nurse practitioners instead of MD physicians. Both are necessary, but the nurse practitioners are not sufficient. There is a difference! But, why help A16Z? They have money enough now!
    - ironchef 13y ago
      "(1) It appears, really is quite clear, that they have high contempt for initial contacts from entrepreneurs via e-mail." - First, what is your sample size? Do you have any idea how many meetings they give come through email? Just because they may have rejected you (no idea), doesn't mean they reject everyone. Second, I would suggest that a cold email is probably the worst way to approach ANY VC. "A16Z wants to believe that they have 'deep domain knowledge' where they invest and, thus, wants to believe that anything new that A16Z has not heard of must be nonsense. If some supporting technical material is not easy reading for them, then they believe that they are justified in just regarding it as nonsense." - I would disagree. That being said I think you're misunderstanding the point of the VC business. It is NOT to create / promote new technologies only. It is to promote businesses and segments that they believe will be profitable (in general). "But, looking at the partners of A16Z, it's tough to find one with enough technical qualifications and/or accomplishments to (A) get a tenure track position in the engineering school of a leading research university, (B) be an editor of a leading technical journal of original research, (C) publish a peer-reviewed paper of original research in a technical field in a good or better journal of original research, or (D) get an NSF grant for original research." - Ok. But again you're measuring the success of a VC on technical acumen. What are technologies generally used for? To solve problems. In business domains. You want to go through that partner list again and tell me they don't have experience in various business domains? "Net, A16Z apparently is not competent to review or even to direct a competent review of technical material in information technology." - They don't make a claim to. Next? "What the A16Z financial performance really is is likely not easy to discover." - Let's see. Google "a16z performance returns". First article: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/23/nice-ira-andreessen-horowitz-returns-first-fund-twice-over/ http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/23/nice-ira-andreesse... . I must be a genius. Yes, this is but the first data point; however, it's a start.....and based on other more recent data points (oculus, etc.), it may be suggested they're doing well. It's nice that you want to brush how most VCs are judged as successes or not (by the performance of their portfolio) as secondary in comparison to what you want to judge them by. "You seem to suggest that the project for which the OP is some recruiting is for an internal information system to do causal modeling and make valuable predictions for venture investing." - I'm sorry you inferred that. Allow me to be perfectly clear. I have no idea what they are recruiting for. I could imagine a lot of projects....the above is something that is certainly not out of bounds "It would appear that they want to do cross tabulation and curve fitting; sorry, there is nearly no chance those techniques will work. Why? In simple terms, they are looking for new, exceptional cases, and looking at 'averages' from the past, even of successes in the past, is just intellectual self-abuse." - It may appear like that to you; however, I would suggest it's probably much more complex. They could be performing (for example) some clustering techniques (k-means, k-medians, what not) across the investments. They could be performing a variety of analytics on the talent development portion to gain a better understanding of expectations of the companies and candidates. They could be doing a lot of things... "If they are making money, then, fine." - I'm pretty sure that's not the case with you. I'm pretty sure that even if it was shown they're beating even 80% of other VCs you would still be hyper critical of their technical evaluation skills. "I've been around technical work in US national security, US business and start ups, including one of the most successful venture funded companies ever, and high end academic research, hold a Ph.D. in engineering from one of the world's best research universities, have published peer-reviewed original research in computer science, applied mathematics, and artificial intelligence" - Do you want a cookie? "and in comparison the technical qualifications of A16Z look like a bad joke." - Yet their business and venture capital qualifications appear to be quite good. "By an analogy, A16Z is looking for nurse practitioners instead of MD physicians. Both are necessary, but the nurse practitioners are not sufficient. There is a difference!" - They're not looking for MD physicians as the portfolio companies have the technical expertise.
- cnaut 13y ago
  A big part of investment is pattern recognition. Of course they try to understand what people are doing but that only gets you so far. Ideally, you would want to be able to learn from your previous decisions and improve on your process. If you have real data and a way of using it for more insight then you can make much better decisions.
  - graycat 13y ago
    Their version of "pattern recognition" is just hopeless for what they are trying to do. E.g., how to use pattern recognition in the industry of leading edge military aviation to evaluate what Kelly Johnson said about building an airplane that would go at Mach 3+ and 80,000+ feet for 2000+ miles without refueling? Can't do it. Instead have to look at the mathematics, engineering, etc., especially a special engine just developed at a special Pratt and Whitney site in Florida. Information technology venture capital needs to find projects that have powerful, valuable new work and are exceptional. There is no way to evaluate such projects by simple, empirical 'pattern matching' from the past of business and venture funded projects. Venture capital looks at sectors, the demeanor of the founders, maybe their socks, the jut of their jaw, etc. because that is all they know to look at. One could count on two hands all the information technology venture partners in the US able to do a competent review of projects submitted to the NSF. E.g., the last paper I published in computer science is for a quite practical problem in practical computing, but I doubt that anyone at A16Z could read that paper or even direct a competent review of it. Thankfully for US national security, how to review projects in technology is very well known and done very well everyday, for 70+ years, by NSF, NIH, DARPA, etc. For Silicon Valley for information technology (the situation for biomedical technology is quite different), there's essentially no chance of competent technical review, not at A16Z, KPCB, Sequoia, Benchmark, etc. For an analogy, for the SR-71, Lockheed could build several, have some fly successfully over Russia and get some fantastic pictures, and then venture capital might invest to buy some of the jet fuel. Instead, the USAF, CIA, etc. did some really good work reviewing the really excellent work of Lockheed, all from what Lockheed submitted just on paper. Net, Silicon Valley venture capital just absolutely, positively, flatly doesn't have even as much as a weak little hollow hint of a tiny clue about how to do or evaluate original, exceptional, powerful, valuable information technology projects. Sorry 'bout that.

by cnaut 13y ago

graycat 13y ago

A better way: Actually read and understand the submissions from the entrepreneurs!

ironchef 13y ago
Are you suggesting that a16z doesn't do this? Or that their firm is not doing well? It would seem to me that their limited track record is ... more than adequate. Similarly, I would infer that your suggestion is ignorant that they have interest in the companies post-funding (as cnaut suggests "A lot of VCs firms are trying to apply more data to their investment decisions and that requires internal tools to handle it all"... which I think would suggest that they would want to examine the results of said decisions as well (which goes beyond simply the submission process)).
- graycat 13y ago
  > Are you suggesting that a16z doesn't do this? Yes I am. (1) It appears, really is quite clear, that they have high contempt for initial contacts from entrepreneurs via e-mail. Instead they want to believe that the 'good' entrepreneurs will have enough 'exposure', enough in 'networking', and enough in 'hustle', e.g., on LinkedIn, GetHub, etc., to come to the attention of A16Z by means other than an e-mail message "over the transom". E.g., they want an entrepreneur to get introductions from bankers, lawyers, accountants, or CEO's of companies in the A16Z portfolio. So, A16Z (A) wants others to 'filter' their entrepreneurs for them and/or (B) believes that lawyers, etc. are good sources of good recommendations. Nonsense. (2) A16Z will just refuse to consider any very technical support for a project. E.g., if a project has some powerful, valuable 'secret sauce', intellectual property, and high technological barrier to entry, A16Z can easily just dismiss the technical issues, the project, and the entrepreneur. A16Z wants to believe that they have 'deep domain knowledge' where they invest and, thus, wants to believe that anything new that A16Z has not heard of must be nonsense. If some supporting technical material is not easy reading for them, then they believe that they are justified in just regarding it as nonsense. But, looking at the partners of A16Z, it's tough to find one with enough technical qualifications and/or accomplishments to (A) get a tenure track position in the engineering school of a leading research university, (B) be an editor of a leading technical journal of original research, (C) publish a peer-reviewed paper of original research in a technical field in a good or better journal of original research, or (D) get an NSF grant for original research. Net, A16Z apparently is not competent to review or even to direct a competent review of technical material in information technology. What the A16Z financial performance really is is likely not easy to discover. You seem to suggest that the project for which the OP is some recruiting is for an internal information system to do causal modeling and make valuable predictions for venture investing. It would appear that they want to do cross tabulation and curve fitting; sorry, there is nearly no chance those techniques will work. Why? In simple terms, they are looking for new, exceptional cases, and looking at 'averages' from the past, even of successes in the past, is just intellectual self-abuse. If they are making money, then, fine. But from all I can see, in information technology their competence is way below a level that would be useful for actual technical work or doing a technical review of such work. I've been around technical work in US national security, US business and start ups, including one of the most successful venture funded companies ever, and high end academic research, hold a Ph.D. in engineering from one of the world's best research universities, have published peer-reviewed original research in computer science, applied mathematics, and artificial intelligence, and in comparison the technical qualifications of A16Z look like a bad joke. Yes, most good quantitative analysis needs some computing and programming. So, in their recruiting A16Z seems to believe that the computing, which is necessary, is also sufficient. It's not. By an analogy, A16Z is looking for nurse practitioners instead of MD physicians. Both are necessary, but the nurse practitioners are not sufficient. There is a difference! But, why help A16Z? They have money enough now!
  - ironchef 13y ago
    "(1) It appears, really is quite clear, that they have high contempt for initial contacts from entrepreneurs via e-mail." - First, what is your sample size? Do you have any idea how many meetings they give come through email? Just because they may have rejected you (no idea), doesn't mean they reject everyone. Second, I would suggest that a cold email is probably the worst way to approach ANY VC. "A16Z wants to believe that they have 'deep domain knowledge' where they invest and, thus, wants to believe that anything new that A16Z has not heard of must be nonsense. If some supporting technical material is not easy reading for them, then they believe that they are justified in just regarding it as nonsense." - I would disagree. That being said I think you're misunderstanding the point of the VC business. It is NOT to create / promote new technologies only. It is to promote businesses and segments that they believe will be profitable (in general). "But, looking at the partners of A16Z, it's tough to find one with enough technical qualifications and/or accomplishments to (A) get a tenure track position in the engineering school of a leading research university, (B) be an editor of a leading technical journal of original research, (C) publish a peer-reviewed paper of original research in a technical field in a good or better journal of original research, or (D) get an NSF grant for original research." - Ok. But again you're measuring the success of a VC on technical acumen. What are technologies generally used for? To solve problems. In business domains. You want to go through that partner list again and tell me they don't have experience in various business domains? "Net, A16Z apparently is not competent to review or even to direct a competent review of technical material in information technology." - They don't make a claim to. Next? "What the A16Z financial performance really is is likely not easy to discover." - Let's see. Google "a16z performance returns". First article: http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/23/nice-ira-andreessen-horowitz-returns-first-fund-twice-over/ http://finance.fortune.cnn.com/2012/07/23/nice-ira-andreesse... . I must be a genius. Yes, this is but the first data point; however, it's a start.....and based on other more recent data points (oculus, etc.), it may be suggested they're doing well. It's nice that you want to brush how most VCs are judged as successes or not (by the performance of their portfolio) as secondary in comparison to what you want to judge them by. "You seem to suggest that the project for which the OP is some recruiting is for an internal information system to do causal modeling and make valuable predictions for venture investing." - I'm sorry you inferred that. Allow me to be perfectly clear. I have no idea what they are recruiting for. I could imagine a lot of projects....the above is something that is certainly not out of bounds "It would appear that they want to do cross tabulation and curve fitting; sorry, there is nearly no chance those techniques will work. Why? In simple terms, they are looking for new, exceptional cases, and looking at 'averages' from the past, even of successes in the past, is just intellectual self-abuse." - It may appear like that to you; however, I would suggest it's probably much more complex. They could be performing (for example) some clustering techniques (k-means, k-medians, what not) across the investments. They could be performing a variety of analytics on the talent development portion to gain a better understanding of expectations of the companies and candidates. They could be doing a lot of things... "If they are making money, then, fine." - I'm pretty sure that's not the case with you. I'm pretty sure that even if it was shown they're beating even 80% of other VCs you would still be hyper critical of their technical evaluation skills. "I've been around technical work in US national security, US business and start ups, including one of the most successful venture funded companies ever, and high end academic research, hold a Ph.D. in engineering from one of the world's best research universities, have published peer-reviewed original research in computer science, applied mathematics, and artificial intelligence" - Do you want a cookie? "and in comparison the technical qualifications of A16Z look like a bad joke." - Yet their business and venture capital qualifications appear to be quite good. "By an analogy, A16Z is looking for nurse practitioners instead of MD physicians. Both are necessary, but the nurse practitioners are not sufficient. There is a difference!" - They're not looking for MD physicians as the portfolio companies have the technical expertise.
cnaut 13y ago
A big part of investment is pattern recognition. Of course they try to understand what people are doing but that only gets you so far. Ideally, you would want to be able to learn from your previous decisions and improve on your process. If you have real data and a way of using it for more insight then you can make much better decisions.
- graycat 13y ago
  Their version of "pattern recognition" is just hopeless for what they are trying to do. E.g., how to use pattern recognition in the industry of leading edge military aviation to evaluate what Kelly Johnson said about building an airplane that would go at Mach 3+ and 80,000+ feet for 2000+ miles without refueling? Can't do it. Instead have to look at the mathematics, engineering, etc., especially a special engine just developed at a special Pratt and Whitney site in Florida. Information technology venture capital needs to find projects that have powerful, valuable new work and are exceptional. There is no way to evaluate such projects by simple, empirical 'pattern matching' from the past of business and venture funded projects. Venture capital looks at sectors, the demeanor of the founders, maybe their socks, the jut of their jaw, etc. because that is all they know to look at. One could count on two hands all the information technology venture partners in the US able to do a competent review of projects submitted to the NSF. E.g., the last paper I published in computer science is for a quite practical problem in practical computing, but I doubt that anyone at A16Z could read that paper or even direct a competent review of it. Thankfully for US national security, how to review projects in technology is very well known and done very well everyday, for 70+ years, by NSF, NIH, DARPA, etc. For Silicon Valley for information technology (the situation for biomedical technology is quite different), there's essentially no chance of competent technical review, not at A16Z, KPCB, Sequoia, Benchmark, etc. For an analogy, for the SR-71, Lockheed could build several, have some fly successfully over Russia and get some fantastic pictures, and then venture capital might invest to buy some of the jet fuel. Instead, the USAF, CIA, etc. did some really good work reviewing the really excellent work of Lockheed, all from what Lockheed submitted just on paper. Net, Silicon Valley venture capital just absolutely, positively, flatly doesn't have even as much as a weak little hollow hint of a tiny clue about how to do or evaluate original, exceptional, powerful, valuable information technology projects. Sorry 'bout that.