

I Got Lucky - terpua
http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2008/05/i-got-lucky.html

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fredwilson
if you want more history, i'll work on a few more posts like this one. it's
not so easy for me to do because it seems sort of self centered. the reason i
did this one is a guy getting out of b-school asked me to.

i would love to see a way to pump all this discussion on hacker news into
disqus so that it gets onto my blog. there's a good discussion going on there
that you all would be added value to

~~~
wumi
<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42275>

"1 point by ph0rque 290 days ago | link

I guess what I had in mind is to somehow link the disqus users with news.YC
users so that e.g. Fred Wilson would not have to re-register at news.YC."

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dcurtis
He doesn't explain how he got rich though... "I joined a VC" ... "I was
lucky!"

I'd be interested in hearing a lot more about his past and how he forced his
way into the VC industry with no experience.

~~~
fredwilson
well i sort of did. we turned $150mm into $750mm from 1996 to 2000. vc's
generally get paid 20% of their profits so take 20% of $600mm and then split
that with Jerry and a few others and that's where the money came from.

i've made more since, but that was the initial payday.

up until then, we were eating ramen the week the mortgage was due.

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prakash
This is why I like, and have been reading Fred's blog for years: he is honest
and forthcoming on his blog.

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edw519
"Luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity."

\- Seneca

~~~
ambition
I'm scared of what happens when preparation doesn't meet opportunity.

~~~
Alex3917
Once you hit a certain level of preparedness you realize that once-in-a-
lifetime opportunities don't really exist.

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ilamont
Interesting ... I wonder how his career would have worked out if he had
started in the VC business in the early 1980s, instead of the mid 1980s or
later? Or, if he didn't have the software background?

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davidw
"Black Swan".

What's up with the [dead] "fredwilson" comments, BTW?

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alaskamiller
Sometimes the easiest part of success is just showing up.

