VC Cliche of the Week
I realized sometime this afternoon that I had forgotten to do my VC Cliche of the Week post.
I am nothing if not a creature of habit, so it’s been bugging me ever since and I feel the need to post my cliche before calling it a night.
So it was serendipity that in a conversation with another VC at the Web 2.0 conference today we got talking about a VC firm and a particular VC that was taking great glee in a recent homerun deal.
Except for the fact that the VC in question was a vocal critic of the deal within his firm until the investment turned out so well.
It reminded me of the cliche that success has a thousand fathers.
You can count on it – when a deal works out spectacularly everyone involved will take credit for it.
This behavior is particularly annoying to the entrepreneurs who put the sweat, blood, and tears into the Company.
They watch the VCs take credit for the big success and it grates on them.
I have a couple rules that I try very hard to live by in this regard:
1- the management team always gets the credit. VCs don’t do the dirty work and should not get the accolades when things work out.
2 – don’t gloat. it’s not becoming. humility in times of great success is a very becoming characteristic.
But it’s really hard to follow these rules when things work out well. Because success doesn’t come that often, and when it does, it has a thousand fathers.