I am going to let the subject of this post introduce himself: “I am Josh Kopelman and I am a partner at First Round Capital, a seed-stage venture firm. Before that I was an entrepreneur, founding and exiting three companies (one IPO, two acquisitions). I’m based in Philly – but First Round invests nationally, and our biggest office is in San Francisco. My fund has invested in the first rounds […]
One of the more legendary characters in the history of investing is Bernard Baruch. In his biography Jim Grant writes that Baruch was not as wealthy as most people imagine, but wealth enough to live the lifestyle “of a millionaire” (whatever that means). At various times in his life Baruch was an investor, philanthropist, statesman, and political consultant. The Dictionary of American Biography provides background: In 1891 Baruch joined the […]
My objective in this blog post is to contrast the investing outcomes of an amateur investor like Samuel Clemens (Mark Twain) with the outcomes experienced by a professional investor. One type of investment where most anyone can see this difference is in venture capital, where Twain was quite active over the years even though the word had not yet been created. His performance as a venture capital investor was terrible. […]
Steve Anderson is the founder of the pioneering “micro VC” Baseline Ventures. What is a micro VC? As the name implies, micro-VCs are smaller versions of more traditional venture firms (e.g., they raise less money and invest smaller amounts at an earlier stage in life cycle of the startup business). Mattermark writes about the category: “Most (around 80 percent) of the initial investments that micro VC firms make are in […]
Mary Meeker is a partner at the venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers. Before becoming a venture capitalist she was a Managing Director, Research Analyst, and Technology Analyst at Morgan Stanley from 1991 to 2010. She previously worked at Salomon Brothers. Meeker received her MBA from Cornell. Meeker and I lived through many of the same events, but in different places, which creates different perspectives. For example, […]
Jessica Livingston co-founded Y Combinator in March of 2005. The goal of Y Combinator is to provide seed funding for startups and help get the business to a point where they have “built something impressive enough to raise money on a larger scale.” The next goal is to “introduce the founders to later stage investors—or occasionally even acquirers.” Livingston has written a book, “Founders at Work” (2007) based on interviews […]
Chamath Palihapitiya is the founder of the venture capital firm Social Capital. Chamath lived in Sri Lanka until he was 6 when his family moved to Canada. He is a graduate of the University of Waterloo, where he achieved First Class Honors in Electrical Engineering. Chamath was an early member of the Facebook senior management team. He was Facebook’s VP of Growth, Mobile & International. Prior to joining Facebook in […]
Dr. Michael Burry is the founder of Scion Capital. He was recently made famous with the general public as a character in the movie adaptation of Michael Lewis’ book The Big Short, but even before then he was famous in investing circles for his astute investing during times like the financial crisis of 2007. Michael Burry is portrayed in the movie by Christian Bale. The real Michael Burry started […]
This post is all about network effects and critical mass. But it’s also about applying those concepts as important mental models in business, so I will share a short story about a business decision I once made that required me to consider network effects. The Internet bubble had popped by 2002, and a lot of people were looking for the next big thing. One day that summer, my friend […]
Benjamin Franklin was an amazing person measured by any standard. His story is worth learning about in detail and there are some wonderful biographies available. It is hard to do justice to Franklin’s accomplishments and his life story in a a blog post, but here is a highly simplified summary of the basics: “Franklin was born in Boston in 1706. He was legally indentured to work in his brother’s […]