
Was Etsy too good to be true? - ductionist
https://www.vox.com/the-goods/2019/9/4/20841475/etsy-free-shipping-amazon-handmade-josh-silverman
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heymijo
> _“The house was burning and nobody was paying attention,” Etsy board member
> and Union Square Ventures co-founder Fred Wilson told the New York Times.)_

This feels like asking the wolf what happened after he bought access to the
hen house.

An accounting we will never get, but I would love to see is just how much
dysfunction and detriment venture capitalists caused their portfolio companies
over the past 15 years.

Fred Wilson gets my attention because unfortunate for him, the book, Hatching
Twitter shows just how much discord he sowed at Twitter [0]. He is also on
record saying he doesn't regret any of it.[1]

Yes, Etsy exists within the VC system, which demands an acquisition or going
public, but how many of the bad decisions throughout its hypergrowth were
pushed or enabled by Wilson/USV and Etsy's other VC's?

I think it's important to understand these stories, especially in a world
where venture capitalists have positioned themselves and their industry as
thought leaders in the startup and growth arenas. VCs' actions are almost
always behind the scenes, opaque at best, but when actually brought to light
can drastically differ from their public opining.

[0] [https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-
twitte...](https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18656827-hatching-twitter) [1]
[https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about-
Hatc...](https://www.quora.com/What-does-Fred-Wilson-think-about-Hatching-
Twitter)

