Andreessen on VCs
I told you last week that the addition of Marc’s voice to the blog world was going to be fruitful. And man has it ever been.
A post on how to be more productive
A post on how to hire the best people
And now back to back posts on VCs.
I want to comment on these posts, react to them, debate them at some level. But I don’t know where to start. Marc has basically nailed it. He lays out how we do our business, why we do it that way, and what our goals are.
Sure, I could nitpick. I do think that entrepreneur friendly VC firms will outperform "notoriously brutal" VC firms (Marc’s words not mine) over the long run. When you’ve got an efficient and transparent market, and we are basically there now in the VC business, the firms that services their customers (the entrepreneurs) will generate higher returns to their shareholders (the limited partners) than those who abuse them.
I also take some objection to this comment:
You actually don’t want a VC who provides too much help without being asked. I leave the why as an exercise for the reader.
Ask every entrepreneur I’ve ever worked with and they’ll tell you I am guilty of doing that. It’s what I do. I tell people what I think even if they haven’t asked me. If they tell me to shut up, I’ll do that to a point. But I don’t think you want a VC who ignores your company.
But again, these are nits. Marc has nailed it. If you work with VCs or are thinking of working with them, read his two posts.