

What We Do, More Than Money, Format & Philosophy - bootload
http://ycombinator.com/about.html

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bootload
_"... Why are we so flexible? Not (just) because we're nice people. We realize
that, as it gets cheaper to start a company, the balance of power is shifting
from investors to hackers. ..."_

_"... All venture investors supply some combination of money and help. In our
case the money is by far the smaller component. ..."_

_"... One of the least publicized things we do, for obvious reasons, is
mediate disputes between founders. No startup thinks they're going to need
that, but most do at some point. ..."_

_".... We realize that independence is one of the reasons people want to start
startups in the first place. And frankly, it's also one of the reasons
startups succeed. Investors who try to control the companies they fund often
end up destroying them. ..."_

A nice read & certainly offering some insights I have not previously read.

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tx
I generally believe that most people with money are generally not stupid. Why,
if that is the case, I hear so often that VCs more likely to destroy companies
they fund by imposing their control (via puppet CEO for example)?

Just asking...

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bootload
_"... I generally believe that most people with money are generally not
stupid. Why, if that is the case, I hear so often that VCs more likely to
destroy companies they fund ..."_

Human frailty.

After you make a certain amount of money the real aphrodisiac or prime
motivator becomes power and control. So (mindless) control is the problem. It
has less to do with stupidity, how smart you are as to how well your pre-
frontal cortex has been trained to deal with _absolute power_. There is a lot
to be learn't from the ego-less leader. Jim Collins has written about this
character trait that propels (or hinders) companies ~
<http://www.fastcompany.com/magazine/51/goodtogreat.html>

