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pg/jl/tlb/rtm: as you're primarily advisors and investors now, do you feel like you've started adopting any habits of VCs (either positive or negative)?
by apu 17y ago
pg/jl/tlb/rtm: as you're primarily advisors and investors now, do you feel like you've started adopting any habits of VCs (either positive or negative)?
- pg 17y agoInteresting question. Not all investors are VCs. There are also angel investors, and we are much more like angels, both in our backgrounds and the part of the startup world we occupy. Angels don't have a lot of habits, either good or bad. They're mostly just individuals who got rich from their own startups; their personalities are not much affected by being investors. The one thing that makes us different from angels is that we invest on such a large scale. We have a brand name and an office and a web site and all that. Would that engender any habits, though? I can't think of any. I definitely don't think we have any of the habits of VCs that are mentioned in this list. The fact that VCs dress up and try to project an aura of power comes from being finance guys, not VCs per se; investment bankers are the same (and in fact are indistinguishable to me). And we don't have the luxury of being sheep, because we have to decide whether or not to invest in a company the same day we meet them.
- ivankirigin 17y agoHas managing your own fund affected how you think about the upside of startups?
- pg 17y agoYou mean the money we raised this spring? No, that hasn't changed anything. We still operate as if we were investing our own money-- which is what I'd want if I were an LP, actually.