DISQUS

Downloaded and installed for Gmail/FF.
Gmail becomes pretty unstable. The zemanta window seems to conflict with the RTM one. After closing zemanta, the gmail panel can't find its proper width.
emailed you screenshot to pass on to the team.

Fred,

Isn't the FASB rule based on the assumption that VCs are (generally) able to value a private company at various stages of its existence (seed, early, late, aso.) when they need to issue a term-sheet? The inter-VC competitive issue set apart, when VCs offer a PPS, it is supposed to be as close as possible of a fair market value. The later defined as expected future value discounted for risk and not including the VCs very own influence on boosting the company valuation.

March 2007. You're alone in the dark.

aww. http://www.peigg.org/valuations.html

your fund is actually you first and no pre-determined investment strategy. besides, i don't see daily trading on the top 10 stocks as a strategy per se. with higher liquidity and high visibility, these stocks have greater std dev making it easier to avoid fundamental analysis type of decision. if you're currently successful, then enjoy because it may not last forever, as we all know. i find it hard to believe that constantly betting on winners is
a/ a winning proposition on the long run
b/ if a/ stands, something other people didn't noticed

unnoticed, this is pretty counter-intuitive and not much supported by evidence

Don't drink milk.

What is this fury of denial? Just had a roadshow in London and SFO. Statistically consistent if compared with the sole case you're putting in front of us. And the results is a disaster. Nada. Oh, and the company makes $7M with 50% Q/Q growth rate...

This forcing function stuff is weird. It implies that VCs do look at their portfolio with pink glasses before it happens (as seems the case with Flatiron) and then turn all negative. This reminds of well documented market behavior (self consistency, over confidence, aso.).

What if there is no forcing function? Are VCs going to keep their portfolio alive up until the last moment when liquidating the fund becomes mandatory?

Is this "batch strategy" (it's either all good or all bad) having an impact on returns? There must be dogs that are kept alive in good times, burning money and reducing directly and indirectly the future returns. There must be unrealized yet potential companies that are written off in bad times, directly reducing the returns.

In theory, the portfolio should follow some kind of normal distribution over the life of the fund. It would be great if academics (Steve Kaplan @ Chicago GSB) could have access to portfolio data from funds and get back with market evidence that VCs are not different from other investors.

Fabrice left France years ago and he is now a happy and succesfull US entrepreneur - it is up to us, the people he left behind to ensure that the cliché he's carrying around are all but true - and we're moving in the right direction

It's really been an intense and thought provoking day for us. I appreciated a lot, so did all the entrepreneurs, your questions, comments and feedback. Lot of work ahead but we like it. Also, thanks to the people at Altaïde and Open Coffee Club for their help in the organization.

A little bit confusing with the mix between media and purpose.

Where would you put Enterprise 2.0 tools like www.feedback20.com?

Qui que ce soit qui prendra le poste de sélectionneur, il faudra qu'il ne pense qu'à une chose: le rugby. Au-delà de Laporte et de ce pauvre Chabal, c'est le mélange douteux sport/business/comm/starsystem qui nous coûte la finale.

Quand il devient plus important d'avoir sa trombine dans les médias people que de bien jouer, quand l'image prime sur le fond, tu as une recette pour l'échec.

Il y a quand même une lueur d'espoir dans ce monde de brutes: http://tinyurl.com/39nayj

Je ne sais pas si c'est la limite qui recule ou simplement le jeu qui évolue. Si nous voulons que le rugby devienne un sport planétaire, il faut jouer avec les règles du cirque médiatico/business. Les enjeux ne sont plus les mêmes. Pour moi, l'impact le plus important de l'arrivée de l'argent est la quasi disparition de la 3eme mi-temps (ça t'arrive souvent de fêter une victoire du ST avec les joueurs dans un bar de la place du capitole?), ça c'est acté. Ce qui nous pend au nez et qui fera vraiment mal, c'est le dopage.

En revanche, si tu cherches qui menace les valeurs du rugby, regarde plutôt du côté de TF1 qui ne diffuse qu'1/3 des matchs et du pitoyable cirque médiatique autour de Chabal. Là, ça craint vraiment.

Et que dire des Anglais assassinés tous les jours par leur propre presse depuis 2 ans? La réaction des gens en NZ est normale, elle est portée par la passion de tout un peuple pour ce jeu. Quand les enfants font de grosses bêtises, on les gronde, on cherche des coupables, mais on les aime quand même. ça va se tasser, et dans 4 ans, ils perdront le match inaugural pour finir par emporter la coupe (comme une certaine équipe que je ne nommerai pas...).

The flaw in this reasoning is that it is still the CIO that has control over the budget and the big software houses also through the CIO "protect and serve myself" risk adverse policy.

One way to overcome this bottleneck is to spread viraly inside the enterprise up to the point where your product becomes almost mission critical. The CIO now has to make a decision. This is the way open source penetrates and it is doing better every day.

Another way is to let the employees import good practices from the outside. As a consumer, if you're able to contribute to a brand's feedback platform (as an example), then you might be tempted to use it as the marketing manager that you are at the office. Users become sponsors.

I don't see an end to the supply of Web whatever.0 companies as long as users keep rampaging from one service to the other with no obvious rationale behind. VCs may achieve the one/ten ratio if they bet on the best teams combining technical skills and some execution capabilities. The current internet market is very contrarian as one where it's better to bet on the jockey. And the advertising market growth will keep all this nice brownian cloud in motion until advitisers realize that its is as improductive as a plain old TV commercial (that won't happen soon, self consistency you know..). Add that "traditional" boring prehistoric businesses flourish these days (e-commerce, remember?), and you have a receipe for constant growth.

And there are plenty of other opportunities: greentech, telco 2.0 (how to deconstruct the monolith), open source wireless. Not enough to diversify squarely but still promising enough to entertain the LPs. And the exit market seems to have substitute trade sale from market value inflated internet companies to plain old IPO. Even if credit becomes harder to get from banks, you can still rely on investors with rosy glasses, to some extent.

May be you're anxious because of the general lack of seriousness of all that. After all, none of these services/technologies has had a deep impact on our societies. We're still waiting for the thing that will change our life like wireless did. Good news is that plenty of entrepreneurs try to find it in all domains. Let's move forward.

Hi all, just to point an interesting EU funded project (there are some from time to time) about bridging the gap between the real world and the open source driving forces. The list of non-code OS projects is striking.

http://www.openttt.eu/joomla/index.php?option=c...

Relire le rapport Pébereau. Ces chiffres, comme ceux du chômage, sont une vision tronquée de la réalité.

Malheureusement pour nous tous qui allons payer longtemps ces 20 dernières années de vie à crédit de l'état français.