

Introducing our new venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz - kungfudoi
http://blog.pmarca.com/2009/07/introducing-our-new-venture-capital-firm-andreessen-horowitz.html

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pchristensen
This caught my eye: "We have the ability to invest between $50 thousand and
$50 million in a company, depending on the stage and the opportunity."
Somebody sees an opportunity!

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aston
Awesome to hear the announcement. Sucks that this is the first pmarca blog
post in nearly a year.

I really hope he starts back up again; many of his posts have been absolute
gems.

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eterno
Cool stuff. I think Anreessen gets the whole startup thing a lot more than the
current crop of investment bankers.

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david927
Actual tech guys as VC. It's fantastic. I think it explains their past success
and why they are capitalized at $300mm. I expect nothing but success from
these guys.

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marksutherland
I would have seen this as good news, if I hadn't read this article the other
week: [http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/03/ning-exposed-tech-
comp...](http://www.chartingstocks.net/2009/03/ning-exposed-tech-company-ning-
scams-its-clients/) . I noticed Marc stopped blogging just before the first
questionable action that's reported in the article. Marc's blog posts in 07/08
were fantastic stuff, but the behaviour of his current business, with no
reasonable response that I could find, undermines his otherwise good
reputation. Does anybody know more about what's going on here?

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jacquesm
see this thread:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=689521>

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staunch
It is unfortunate that someone so geeky doesn't take the kind of approach PG
does, with the YC application. It seems to me a detailed application and a
video should be the preferred way for a VC to screen deals.

I've hired great people based on personal referrals, but I've also hired great
people based on resumes and interviews...

That said, I'm really excited for them and can't wait to see who they invest
in and what the outcome is.

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rms
>It seems to me a detailed application and a video should be the preferred way
for a VC to screen deals.

Maybe if they have a lot of time to read applications, but for the very large
companies this fund is going for, the referral system really just works.

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david927
I agree, for large companies, referral makes sense.

But they were quite clear they want to get involved in seed stage and for
that, referral-only is another way of saying "innovation, but only where it
comes from certain connected people in a few places". Innovation is occurring
everywhere and yet it languishes. It needs people like Marc and Ben. If they
are serious about seed funding (and they have been and they should be), they
need to set up a more indirect process as well.

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tonystubblebine
I would think the opposite. With large companies there's a track record and
probably enough visibility that the investor knows of their existence and
could approach the company directly. Look at the way Fred Wilson works. It
seems like he often starts by trying out the product before he knows the
team(although he may spot them through his own web of connections).

With smaller investments, there's so many, it seems clear that there needs to
be a filter to what you see. From the outside, it might seem like you need to
be on the in-crowd in order to get a referral, but there are actually plenty
of ways to work your way up to that referral by impressing people on the
periphery.

One of my friends just took (or maybe is just about to take) money from Marc
and he started out as an unconnected founder. But he worked is way into the
meeting by impressing a series of people. The process, though, took two years,
went through at least three levels of filters. So start by impressing the
people around you. If you really are impressive, they'll introduce you to more
people.

However, if you have an idea, nobody will vouch for you, and you need money
now, then you're probably not going to get money even if you could get a
meeting with Marc.

