191–200 of 258 posts
There's a quote I can't quite remember. Goes something like: "When merchants meet to discuss business, the public is rarely the beneficiary".
Was it the Adam Smith quote "People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public." Why do I know that off the top of my head? Civ IV... who says games can't be educational?
There's a comment on Techcrunch that I found particularly interesting: http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-b... "This group does not have a monopoly position in early stage deals. So getting together to discuss how they as individuals/small firms can better compete against much larger VCs and incubators is not price fixing or collusion." It continues on to expand nicely on the point.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
This goes well beyond sensationalism. I'm inclined to believe him for three reasons: 1. Mike's not known for boldly lying. He might publish rumors that Facebook is building a phone too liberally, but I've not heard of him saying "I saw x happen" and it wasn't true. Assuming the account of what he himself saw was accurate it's hard to imagine collusion wouldn't be the purpose. 2. This sounds like something that would…
Add to that that there is no convincing reasons why this group of angels would manufacture this story to lead him on. Unlike with some other TC stories which turned out to be manufactured to discredit TC, in this one, the sources themselves would risk a lot by leaking this - true or false.
I don't know. Maybe it happened, maybe it didn't. But I find it unlikely that such a group, if they had to name one institution by name at such a risky meeting, would name YC and not, say, KPCB.
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.
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 intact and lived to warn us all.
Actually, I don't know what's scarier - the supposed collusion or the subtle dread that Y Combinator is supposed to evoke in my mind as I ponder the possibility of this event being true.
If it is true - maybe we should be side with these poor angels and help them before it's too late.
To paraphrase Woodrow Wilson, "Since I entered (angel investing), I have chiefly had (angel investor's) views confided to me privately. Some of the biggest men in the (Valley), in the Field of (IT) and (Venture Capital), are afraid of something. They know that there is a power somewhere so organized, so subtle, so watchful, so interlocked, so complete, so pervasive, that they better not speak above their breath when they speak in condemnation of it."
That something ... is Y Combinator.
Um ... no. The dark side doesn't suit you, Y Combinator.
Please stop.
I'm sorry. Maybe I've had too many beers tonight. But this is the kind of scenario that only comes out of the mind of a silicon valley PR firm.
(please don't downvote me too much ... I'd like to get above 100 karma points just once for a change! Noooo!)
Is Y-Combinator not considered a super-angel? Arrington says the superangels at the meeting comprise almost 100% of early stage startup funding, but PG wasn't there. What's YC then?
Edit: I think there's another difference too: YC is significantly more founder-friendly. Just like angels have traditionally been more founder-friendly than VCs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
a breaking story would name names...him not naming names just means he can use this as a hammer to get better terms for Techcrunch(either I get exclusive to every deal you guys do...or your names will be posted)
Him not naming names means that people will continue to give him information in the future. He'd be shooting himself in the foot by naming a source that requested anonymity.
Either way he loses that/those source/s for future stories. He did the only thing he could do, besides staying silent. If it happened to be the right thing as well, so much the better.
Is Y-Combinator not considered a super-angel? Arrington says the superangels at the meeting comprise almost 100% of early stage startup funding, but PG wasn't there. What's YC then?
The difference is that YC get in before these guys do. Edit: I think there's another difference too: YC is significantly more founder-friendly. Just like angels have traditionally been more founder-friendly than VCs.
In an age when journalists grade themselves by which power-brokers deign to have lunch with them (anybody see David Brooks prattling about this on Charlie Rose the other night? lunch and dinner, he said) it's impressive to see anyone act like this. Especially if what he's saying is true and this really is a matter of right and wrong.
Game theory. 10 players make for a highly unstable equilibrium, especially given the potential for absurdly high profits for deviating to fund one hot company. One of them is even "highly uncomfortable." The key is to shop around and negotiate intelligently.