
Venture Capital Down 50%. It’s Not Just the Recession, Folks. - vaksel
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/04/17/venture-capital-down-50-it%e2%80%99s-not-just-the-recession-folks/
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pg
Note this much more detailed analysis, lurking down the page with a lower
score due to its lack of a linkbait title:

<http://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=568060>

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ed
From what I hear most viable start-ups (those with traction) are having an
easy time finding VC. It's the 2nd and 3rd tier companies that can't find
capital.

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bokonist
_They’re not sure how to do their jobs anymore when nothing can go public and
acquisitions are few and far between._

Dividends.

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banned_man
I think it's time for VCs to become (lacking a better word) nicer: throw
multiple liquidation preferences on history's scrap heap, start paying
startup's legal fees instead of making the startup pay theirs, and allow
founders to have more control of their company. VCs and entrepreneurs should
meet on equal footing. The VC should not be the boss in the corporate sense;
he's a client, and the entrepreneur is a wealth manager.

If VCs make the process unpleasant for startups, they're going to be smashed
by selection bias: marginal startups will deal with them, but the great ones
will hold out until they have so much traction that they don't need VC, and
can dictate the terms to investors rather than the other way around.

An example of this would be the infamous multiple liquidation preference. If a
company is in such a defeated state that it would accept a deal with a
multiple liquidation preference, your likelihood of losing the principal is
extremely high, and you probably shouldn't make the deal at all.

