Talks & Seminars
The University (and the Student association) is doing a great job in arranging talks & seminars . Every week we have at least two good Seminars/Talks . In fact right now I am supposed to be at Philip Kotler's Talk on Marketing but unfortunately the seats were limited and I couldn't get a seat to that talk ( Kotler's loss ! ). Today afternoon we had a Talk on " Venture Capitalism" by the Chairman of Singapore VC Association. It was an interactive session .
Though my question on " Selfishness of VC's" went unanswered. ( Some VC's exit early out of their ventures lured by quick money instead of nurturing a business.The prime social responsibility should be proliferation of sound businesses and not quick money . No self-respecting CEO would create a company to sell it off - At least that is not the prime motive .However VC's stand to gain the most in case of an acquisition or sell-off . So where do we draw the line between entrepreneurship & money making motive of VC's ? )
The reason why I asked that question is this : I used to work for a start-up in the Silicon Valley.Another big co wanted to buy us out. But our management was unwilling since we were doing well and capable of growth.However, the VC's, since they were offered more money sold us out and our product got killed by the acquirer (Through shoddy management and poor understanding of the product) and the entire current management got laid off. Later the acquirer got into an accounting fraud and paid heavy penalties and sold off our division to another company for peanuts. So a perfectly young,good start-up got killed by the greed for quick money by the VC's.
Btw, found this nice pdf on VC in the web.
The University (and the Student association) is doing a great job in arranging talks & seminars . Every week we have at least two good Seminars/Talks . In fact right now I am supposed to be at Philip Kotler's Talk on Marketing but unfortunately the seats were limited and I couldn't get a seat to that talk ( Kotler's loss ! ). Today afternoon we had a Talk on " Venture Capitalism" by the Chairman of Singapore VC Association. It was an interactive session .
Though my question on " Selfishness of VC's" went unanswered. ( Some VC's exit early out of their ventures lured by quick money instead of nurturing a business.The prime social responsibility should be proliferation of sound businesses and not quick money . No self-respecting CEO would create a company to sell it off - At least that is not the prime motive .However VC's stand to gain the most in case of an acquisition or sell-off . So where do we draw the line between entrepreneurship & money making motive of VC's ? )
The reason why I asked that question is this : I used to work for a start-up in the Silicon Valley.Another big co wanted to buy us out. But our management was unwilling since we were doing well and capable of growth.However, the VC's, since they were offered more money sold us out and our product got killed by the acquirer (Through shoddy management and poor understanding of the product) and the entire current management got laid off. Later the acquirer got into an accounting fraud and paid heavy penalties and sold off our division to another company for peanuts. So a perfectly young,good start-up got killed by the greed for quick money by the VC's.
Btw, found this nice pdf on VC in the web.
posted by Cogito at
Monday, September 20, 2004
2 Comments:
I thought he answered it!
He was pretty clear in his talk that the main - only - aim of VCs is to make money back for their investors. They have no other responsibility. If you don't like that, don't take their money!
By
Bogatyr, at 9:43 AM
Haha.Did he ? VC's are perhaps the last refuge and hence its understandable that the issue of common good never crops up.I spent almost 3 years in the Valley (mostly during its bad times) and have seen enough greed on either side :-)
By
Cogito, at 10:27 AM
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