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So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

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Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#221

Post by jarin »

brendonjason wrote: post #179
dandelany wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Interesting questions... IANAL, but I imagine they're colluding to bring down the valuations of startups, therefore essentially fixing the "price" of their money, to be paid for in startup equity. If I, and others, say your company is worth a million dollars, then I'm fixing the price of my $500,000 at 50% of your company.

IANAL(E), but this scenario would seem to be more of a concern if startups in Silicon valley got together over dinner to deny deals that didn't offer similar terms and prices in dollars for securities of all startups represented at said dinner simultaneously. As for angels fixing the "price of their money" I don't understand how antitrust applies to this anymore than it would to, say, how LIBOR is determined. If anti…

I don't know if care has a lot to do with it. A lot of these folks got successful by taking risks without deep consideration of the consequences (for better or worse). That's why they pay lawyers to tell them when they're pushing the boundaries too much, but in this case the lawyers obviously weren't in on the proceedings.

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#222

Post by guelo »

Eliezer wrote: post #216
guelo wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm guessing the top 10 super angels would include Marc Andreessen, Chris Dixon, Ron Conway and the PayPal guys Peter Thiel, Reid Hoffman, Max Levchin, Keith Rabois Who else?

The Quora list is very different from yours. And I think we should all be really careful about guessing, considering how much damage you could do to someone's reputation by guessing wrongly. There's at least one person on your list above who I'd be surprised to see part of this. Vide the cognitive psychology experiments which show that once you mention a person's name, it gets connected in memory regardless of how do…

My list was complete guessing, just me thinking of famous angels. The Quora list seems to be based on more actual evidence.

In any case, it was Arrington that fingered all these people when he called them the "10 or so highest profile angels" who do "nearly 100% of early stage startup deals in Silicon Valley". Though after seeing Quora's list I think Arrington mischaracterized the group.

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#223

Post by blueben »

brendonjason wrote: post #183
jeromec wrote: post #178

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Think of the stock market. That's certainly a marketplace. It's made up of investors seeking to earn a return on their money by investing in companies. Think of the illegalities involved in collusion to manipulate the stock market. Now think of Silicon Valley as a less formal/regulated stock market... With Groupon nobody is asked to not buy or otherwise participate in the market unless done through Groupon. Instead,…

If I have an investing club and we come to define an investment approach, say, what stocks we like and what we think they should be valued at, are we colluding to price fix the market? If I think a company is over priced and I am in charge of executing trades for my investing club, whose members unanimously agreed not to buy the stock in question until it fell down say, $20 more in price - are we colluding? Yes. Coll…

"Look, you and I both know your company is worth $50 million. But I only want to pay $10 million, and I've already worked out a deal with my competitors so they won't bid any more than that either. We own the market for investment, so you can take it or your company can die for lack of funding."

You don't see a problem with this kind of artificial market manipulation? This is no longer a market; it short circuits true capitalism and only serves to siphon gains from the seller (in this case, the company's founders) to the buyer, who will turn around and effectively try to resell (or otherwise exit) the company for profit.

Everyone seems to be convinced that price fixing only applies to sellers. That's wrong. It firmly applies to both selling and buying. It's fundamentally about market manipulation; taking steps to undermine the economy of the system for direct personal gain. That kind of behavior destroys wealth and erodes confidence in the marketplace.

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#224

Post by ArturSoler »

bl4k wrote: post #142
brisance wrote: post #131

Someone please explain the finer nuances of the law; I can't see how this is different from professional athletes forming their own association/union and stipulating a "minimum fee" e.g. NBA.

the NBA and other sporting leagues are exempt from anti-trust laws in the USA. They get a free pass from the gov: http://www.thesportjournal.org/article/role-antitrust-laws-p...

That makes it different as law is concercened, but one is as legit as the other.

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#225

Post by blueben »

tptacek wrote: post #77
dschobel wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an unrealistically high standard and I can't think of any recent case which would meet it. Why didn't the market find a solution to Microsoft in the 90's or Intel in 2000's and, more importantly, why did the Feds feel the need to intervene?

Microsoft owned the entire personal computing platform and was using it to put new companies in marginally related markets out of business. Are you suggesting that 10 angel investors have control over all the money? Is one of them Lex Luthor?

Because bay area technical angel investing isn't just about writing cheques. It's about managing and guiding those startups, helping them find the resources they need. It's about leveraging your connections throughout the industry to help them grow sales, build manufacturing, hire talent, or any of a hundred other things. This is why startups go back to these handful of investors over and over again. Founders aren't stupid. They know these investors wield serious power in the tech world, and they want that power to be on their side.

If you think the only requirement to being an angel investor is having a big bank account, you haven't been paying attention.

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#226

Post by [deleted] »

brendonjason wrote: post #195
tc wrote: post #116

Congratulations to PG & company. When I first met Paul years ago, he was musing about spam filters and the finer points of a well-designed lisp. Now he apparently has the top 10 angels in Silicon Valley running scared of him.

Yes. They are running scared of the growing threat of the Ylluminati. But since they have 100% of all the deals, they also seem to co-invest(?!?). These anxious (yet all-powerful) group of angels and this unstoppable new seed-stage prominence. They form a closed loop. A loop closed off to venture capitalists and angels not at that meeting ... which is basically everybody. Except Michael. He got away with his life int…

[deleted]

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#227

Post by [deleted] »

dotBen wrote: post #14

There's only half the story here because Arrington isn't naming names. It was a meeting of a group of people in a semi-public place, I don't see why he hasn't named who was there: "So, I went into the restaurant to find Dave, Ron, Jeff, Mike, Josh, Chris, ..." (I'm just naming, um, random first names here folks for the purpose of illustration!) He's clearly running a power play around the identities...

[deleted]

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#228

Post by [deleted] »

bhoung wrote: post #115

As a former competition regulator, I have to say this blog post is a beauty, in content. Making such a serious accusation, albeit one that is very difficult to prove, especially when the accusation is towards your friends is a gutsy/crazy move. This pretty supports PG's prediction that the power is shifting towards founders and startups when raising capital from VCs. Hopefully, this diffuses any further action on the…

[deleted]

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#229

Post by borism »

dzlobin wrote: post #157
jakevoytko wrote: post #153

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This link is now a 404. Thankfully Google has the text of the tweet! speechu: Bin 38 is like heaven right now, chock-full of angels. Not explicitly incriminating, but it sounds pretty bad

Strangely, it's still on the feed. http://twitter.com/speechu But the status link is deleted

real-time wonders of nosql?

Re: So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…

#230

Post by limist »

brendonjason wrote: post #195
tc wrote: post #116

Congratulations to PG & company. When I first met Paul years ago, he was musing about spam filters and the finer points of a well-designed lisp. Now he apparently has the top 10 angels in Silicon Valley running scared of him.

Yes. They are running scared of the growing threat of the Ylluminati. But since they have 100% of all the deals, they also seem to co-invest(?!?). These anxious (yet all-powerful) group of angels and this unstoppable new seed-stage prominence. They form a closed loop. A loop closed off to venture capitalists and angels not at that meeting ... which is basically everybody. Except Michael. He got away with his life int…

I upvoted you just for the historical reference. :)
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