Friday, October 28, 2011

Something Ventured

Random tidbits:

There is starting to be a chill in the air but the beans continue to yield well. The growing season in Long Island is at least a month longer than Guelph.

I did not interview for Brainlogic that ended up on Collaborative Innovation.

I have been sore from added weight lifting. Good sore and self inflicted in any event so tough to complain. I am actually thankful that I am able work out.

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Wednesday night I attended a Cinemonde screening of "Something Ventured - Risk, Reward, and the Original Venture Capitalists" (not to be confused by the autobiography on CM Woodhouse called Something Ventured)

It is a great documentary film. Particularly captivating to me since I knew some of the players and knew of all of the companies.

It told of the early days of Kliener Perkins and the funding of Steve Jobs - including interviews with some people who turned him down because he was "arrogant, hippy and smelled bad". At one point, 33% of Apple could have been bought for $50,000.

It included stories of the founding of Cisco (and the firing of the founder by the VC), Atari, Genentech, Tandem, Intel and others.

I found the film inspirational since what I now do is early stage venture funding.

I was struck by the fairly long timeframes for success. Most "overnight successes" took 25 years.

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