

Silicon Valley Is Not Wall Street: Tom Perkins - jakarta
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB20001424052748704454304575081591449816712.html

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pg
Note to self: If you ever publish something in the WSJ, make sure you get all
the important stuff into first 2.5 paragraphs, before the paywall comes down
and everyone stops reading.

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lisper
If you search for the title of this article in Google News and click on the
link there you can see the entire article without subscribing. (I'm guessing
it's the referrer header that makes the difference.) Well worth the effort.

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mixmax
Here's a link:
[http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&...](http://news.google.com/news/search?aq=f&pz=1&cf=all&ned=us&hl=en&q=Silicon+Valley+Is+Not+Wall+Street+)

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jakarta
I love this bit:

"The first practitioners, including Eugene Kleiner and me, had familiarity
with Wall Street operators and we set up our partnerships to avoid
specifically problematic practices.

These parameters included: no leverage; audited statements; never investing
personal capital where the partnership could or should do so (that is, no
"cherry picking" at the investors expense); no profit participation until the
investor's entire capital had been repaid; limited partnership life and no
investments of new capital in older deals. These early ideas have become
nearly universal over the decades. And in my opinion, they have kept our
industry healthy, profitable and largely scandal-free.

It is time the venture industry is rewarded for the work that we do and how we
go about doing it. We are not asking for bailout money or additional tax
breaks. We simply want those in the Beltway to leave us alone and let us do
our jobs—which means creating more jobs for our country."

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dantheman
It is time the venture industry is rewarded for the work that we do and how we
go about doing it. We are not asking for bailout money or additional tax
breaks. We simply want those in the Beltway to leave us alone and let us do
our jobs, which means creating more jobs for our country.

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pyre
You might want to indicate that that's a quote from the article. Unless I'm
totally out of line and you're really Tom Perkins, then I apologize.

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dantheman
Good call sorry about that, it appears I can no longer edit my post. I meant
to put quotes around it.

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pw0ncakes
One problem: there's a lot of crossover between investment banking and venture
capital. Although the fact is appalling, it's easier to get a VC job with an
IB gig and an MBA than with 4-10 years of experience in technology. So you
have a lot of the same people.

VC would be a lot better-run, however, if it recruited technology people
instead of ex-bankers.

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joshu
Having been (or been close to) all of the above types, I'm pretty sure this
isn't correct.

You actually want someone who has 1) an eye for the future 2) an understanding
of risk 3) a clue as to how to run companies and 4) the ability to say no.

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drunkpotato
I also want a pony.

Those are all rare qualities individually, together they are more rare. I'd be
interested to know which probability is higher: the probability that one has
those qualities given that one works closely with technology, or the
probability that one has those qualities given that one has an MBA.

