Google Ventures Dials Down Seed Deals, Urges Mature Startups to Go Public | Hacker News Reader

Google Ventures Dials Down Seed Deals, Urges Mature Startups to Go Public

blogs.wsj.com

57 pointsT-A11 comments

> Mr. Maris said that he would like more companies to take the IPO leap. “They would benefit from the rigor and discipline that the public market requires.”

Right... Sounds like VC wants an exit, without caring what it does to the company. Typical.

Do you think the unicorns are all worth $1B? What alternative do you propose to restore valuations to normal levels?

He means nothing of the sort. This comment is entirely about the fact that easy VC money and a virtuous (or vicious?) old boy network of founders & funders has made it way too easy to create companies that shouldn't exist but never fail because they've never had to be run like a "real" business.

He's merely noting this in the context of the public markets forcing professional business discipline, which imho is a perfectly reasonable thing for an investor to expect.

Remember this is the same jerk who had a tantrum when a Secret founder used a cash-out to buy a Ferrari. The thing that made me livid was this: he wanted investors' money back because Secret failed, but suppose in some (incredibly) hypothetical universe Secret turned into a multi-billion dollar company and that say 5% cash-out cost the founder $250 million. Would Bill have traded the shares back for the cash-out price? Fuck no. So his whining can be condensed to "if my deals don't work out, I want my money back. Call the whambulance!"

http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/the-lessons-google-...

All VCs talk their book, but perhaps Bill more than most. I'm sure his thoughts on companies benefiting from public market discipline are unrelated to IPOs returning his investments.

I hate going after people who might just have used wrong words to mean something else. But sadly, he has a history of saying anti-entrepreneur things. Perhaps foot in mouth disease is an addiction.

Well, it was a 24% cash out, and this is a question of liquidation preference more than anything else.

They raised $25m, it was presumably valued at much more. That's a very large cash-out either way, but I think my point stands.

You're not happy with an equity investor thinking that his investment should receive priority liquidation preference? Like I understand he might not come across as a good guy. But his comments are specifically about the scenario where a company fails - should the investors or should the founders have preferential bankruptcy treatment? What else could a VC say?

The founders of Secret did not withdraw their money after the bankruptcy but during the fundraising previous to the bankruptcy. Liquidation preference during a bankruptcy event is completely orthogonal to "Should founders give back money they got from selling their stock to investors if the stock later tanks?".

It's easier for GV to wait for companies to become bigger to pick winners. (ie. They invested in Uber's Series C round)

What YC does it probably the best model for seed stage investing. (Weed out a lot of people, invest in 40-50 companies, hopefully 1-2 exits or IPO's)

Not a big concern given the number of angel-like investors whom have tons more cash to help barely seed-stage ventures than in the past.

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