Friday, December 03, 2010

The Day I Got Called Sean Parker


So I am at this NY Tech MeetUp after party last month, feeling fresh - I had skipped the presentations, and gone straight to the after party; presentations are work! - working the room, outenergying most, saying hello, and next. And I shake this guy's hand after approaching him, and he says he has seen me at Fred Wilson's blog.

"It is so great to meet you in person finally," he says.

Thank You Jesus

Thursday, December 02, 2010

Did Not Meet Fred Wilson, But Met Mazy Dar

Last night I showed up for the AVC MeetUp: 11 W 17th St. Fred Wilson did not show.

Web 2.0 Summit 2010: Fred Wilson, John Doerr
Change The Ratio: Fred Wilson, Rachel Sklar
Bubble, Boom Or Froth?
Binary Investments, The Middle Kingdom, And Super Exits
Event At Hunch: Angel, Super Angel, VC
Event At Hunch: Gender Talk (4)
After Party
Meeting Fred Wilson In Person
Netizen Has Arrived: A Link From AVC
Fred Wilson: A DJ

But I got to meet Mazy Dar. Mazy was part of a team that sold a company for $650 million in 2008 two weeks before Lehman collapsed. That was a close call. He now has a startup that sits at the confluence of mobile, and finance, and enterprise. This startup is going to be shaking things.

Wednesday, December 01, 2010

Angel Bubbles: No Bubbles

Image representing Y Combinator as depicted in...Image via CrunchBase
Naval Ravikant: There is No Angel Bubble. There are Many Angel Bubbles.: The total amount of additional capital flowing through the Silicon Valley early-stage ecosystem, thanks to Super-Angels and newly minted millionaires, is on the order of half-a-billion dollars or so. It’s no more than a middling-sized VC fund. Would the emergence of a new VC fund be considered a bubble? Would the collapse of one signal disaster? ..... Most of the small companies being funded will fail, but the ones that hit will generate fantastic returns. And because of their small size and operating costs, a greater percentage will be able to get “ramen profitable” than was traditionally possible. ..... we’re all going to have to become even more comfortable with failures, re-starts, and the kind of team re-combination that one sees from one Y Combinator Demo Day to the next. ..... Angel investment valuations have been climbing very quickly ..... a small number of high-profile Angel investments, moving small amounts of capital but at very high valuations, can make the entire market look overvalued. ..... Seed is the new Series A .... an incredible renaissance in technology, with smart phones taking computing to local arenas and social networks taking it into the mainstream populace ..... we’re going to see the equity gap narrow between the founders of raw startups and early key team members.
I think this is new, uncharted territory, rather than bubble territory. Bubble would be if we were a year or two from imminent collapse. I don't think we are.