
Google Ventures Dials Down Seed Deals, Urges Mature Startups to Go Public - T-A
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2015/12/07/google-ventures-dials-down-seed-deals-urges-mature-startups-to-go-public/
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foolfoolz
> Mr. Maris said that he would like more companies to take the IPO leap. “They
> would benefit from the rigor and discipline that the public market
> requires.”

Right... Sounds like VC wants an exit, without caring what it does to the
company. Typical.

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eitally
He means nothing of the sort. This comment is entirely about the fact that
easy VC money and a virtuous (or vicious?) old boy network of founders &
funders has made it way too easy to create companies that shouldn't exist but
never fail because they've never had to be run like a "real" business.

He's merely noting this in the context of the public markets forcing
professional business discipline, which imho is a perfectly reasonable thing
for an investor to expect.

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x0x0
Remember this is the same jerk who had a tantrum when a Secret founder used a
cash-out to buy a Ferrari. The thing that made me livid was this: he wanted
investors' money back because Secret failed, but suppose in some (incredibly)
hypothetical universe Secret turned into a multi-billion dollar company and
that say 5% cash-out cost the founder $250 million. Would Bill have traded the
shares back for the cash-out price? Fuck no. So his whining can be condensed
to "if my deals don't work out, I want my money back. Call the whambulance!"

[http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/the-lessons-
google-...](http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/the-lessons-google-
ventures-learned-from-secret/?_r=0)

All VCs talk their book, but perhaps Bill more than most. I'm sure his
thoughts on companies benefiting from public market discipline are unrelated
to IPOs returning his investments.

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huac
Well, it was a 24% cash out, and this is a question of liquidation preference
more than anything else.

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x0x0
They raised $25m, it was presumably valued at much more. That's a very large
cash-out either way, but I think my point stands.

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huac
You're not happy with an equity investor thinking that his investment should
receive priority liquidation preference? Like I understand he might not come
across as a good guy. But his comments are specifically about the scenario
where a company fails - should the investors or should the founders have
preferential bankruptcy treatment? What else could a VC say?

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JamesBarney
The founders of Secret did not withdraw their money after the bankruptcy but
during the fundraising previous to the bankruptcy. Liquidation preference
during a bankruptcy event is completely orthogonal to "Should founders give
back money they got from selling their stock to investors if the stock later
tanks?".

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free2rhyme214
It's easier for GV to wait for companies to become bigger to pick winners.
(ie. They invested in Uber's Series C round)

What YC does it probably the best model for seed stage investing. (Weed out a
lot of people, invest in 40-50 companies, hopefully 1-2 exits or IPO's)

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bro-stick
Not a big concern given the number of angel-like investors whom have tons more
cash to help barely seed-stage ventures than in the past.

