

Ben Horowitz: Things Some VCs Do That I Don’t Like - adora
http://bhorowitz.com/2010/04/13/four-things-some-vcs-do-that-i-dont-like/

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ajj
Many of the points are good. I believe one point is true about advice in
general: "They confuse pattern matching with knowledge", which I think is
often very true for advice from professors, parents, friends, etc. A pattern
failed a few times might provide insight, but it must be presented in that
perspective, rather than using it to draw general and strong conclusions.
Someone/something might have failed in spite of the pattern rather than
because of it.

~~~
grinich
Paul Buchheit had a good quote at the 08 startup school.

    
    
      If someone says:
      "That's impossible."
    
      You should understand it as:
      "According to my very limited 
      experience and narrow
      understanding of reality, that's
      very unlikely."
    

Video: <http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EZxP0i9ah8E>

Slides: [http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-buchheit-at-
star...](http://www.omnisio.com/startupschool08/paul-buchheit-at-startup-
school-08)

~~~
derefr
(Unless they're a physicist; then it's jargon.)

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ghshephard
I can attest that everything Ben says is 100% consistent with the way he ran
his company. Even today, ten years later, _my_ employees know better than to
invite me to a meeting that doesn't have the set of Objective/Agenda/Outcomes
in the calendar entry.

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barry-cotter
_If you are a VC and want to be tough, be real tough. For a VC, real tough is:
The courage to do what’s right even if it makes you look really weak to the
partners in your firm_

That "the partners" should be "the other partners", right? IIRC, pg
stated/implied in numerous places that no actual communication has taken place
until you speak to a partner.

Also, from Introducing Andreesen Horowitz _we will not have associates or
other General Partner-track junior positions._ Bravo for honesty. They don't
have the track even in theory, while in almost all VC firms the track exists
only in theory.

[whine] This comment in the spirit of one deleted from Ben Horowitz's blog, as
is his right[/whine]

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jakarta
I think the point about avoiding crowd-think is great. It seems like that is
one of the biggest pitfalls with VC investing, getting irrational about one
area and then bidding up investments in that space.

It'd be interesting to see how other VCs avoid this.

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davidmurphy
Hey, if you're getting tired of having coffee with VCs, send 'em my way, Ben!
I'd gladly have coffee with VCs! :)

