Comments on: Howard Anderson’s “Good-Bye to Venture Capital”

By: SVE

SVE — Wed, 25 May 2005 23:17:59 +0000

Hard to feel sorry for mourning the end of the irrational VC model with its outlandish payouts. Concerning benefits to society, realizing that the BS pump-and-dump schemes no longer work are only good news. As to Anderson’s taking his marbles and going home: goodbye and good riddance.

By: Entrepreneur

Entrepreneur — Sun, 22 May 2005 02:09:52 +0000

This is half-empty thinking! Look at it another way and you can certainly see how it’s never been a better time to be an entrepreneur!

By: robhyndman.com

robhyndman.com — Sat, 21 May 2005 10:29:08 +0000

So Long, and Thanks for All the Carried Interest

Howard Anderson, co-founder of Boston VC firms Battery Ventures and YankeeTek Ventures, has decided to leave the VC business and has written about the reasons why. In brief:

First, technology supply is bloated. Innovation is not dead, but demand f…

By: Jarrett House North

Jarrett House North — Fri, 20 May 2005 21:42:36 +0000

Here

Howard Anderson at Technology Review: Good-Bye to Venture Capital .

By: Bitsplitter Blog

Bitsplitter Blog — Fri, 20 May 2005 16:31:47 +0000

There’s an Opportunity in there Somewhere

I just read Good-Bye to Venture Capital (link via Brad Feld) and the whole thing seems to stand in stark contrast to what I’ve been seeing. I tend to agree more with Fred Wilson. A couple of odd things have happened directly to me over the last few wee…

By: Kenn Goldberg

Kenn Goldberg — Thu, 19 May 2005 22:54:06 +0000

Howard Anderson is correct BUT only as to the information industry. VC is waiting for oppurtunity, not in IT but in actual technological advancemants where the markets will only get stale if we revisit 1929. We need to look beyond and around the obvious and look for “new” tecnology in the sense of quantum leaps in useful technology for the masses. IT had it’s VC day and with market rationality there is little edge or incentive to take the money out of the mattress. Look for new safety products or something so new that you don’t know how you lived without it. In the interim learn about dealing with adversity and survive.
Kenn Goldberg (Inventor and generally an outside observer) KMG@Cables.net (c) May 19, 2005.

By: Dave Jilk

Dave Jilk — Thu, 19 May 2005 00:22:34 +0000

No hidden meaning in the photocopy… for whatever reason I assumed that I would need a login to get to the Technology Review site. And I had the paper copy in my hand…

I have a lot to say about the Kurzweil comments, but briefly:

- In his book, he conflates the idea of hardware/processor speed & size progress and software progress. He assumes that by making computers smaller and faster, we automatically make them smarter. Just plain wrong.
- Software, in the current paradigm, has reached a plateau. There is room for innovation, certainly room for a few great new businesses, but the ratios no longer work — for every idea that can spawn one great business, fifty get funded.
- What is needed to get out of the plateau is not a new “killer app” or a new application of a 30-year-old idea to the Internet, or a CRM tool with even more features. What is needed is a leap in the level of intelligence software has. This is hard — the AI guys have been at it for 40 years or so now — and they still don’t really have a clue. There are glimmers of progress, but until the computer actually gets pissed off when its applications crash, and can figure out where to look for slow network problems without being told, and can go get the information you need before you ask for it, then software progress is just moving buttons around on the screen.

By: Brad Feld

Brad Feld — Wed, 18 May 2005 15:05:45 +0000

Andy – I acknowledge my woosiness in not commenting more aggressively on what I disagree with Howard on – I just didn’t have time yesterday to write a thoughtful rebuttal. Fred Wilson said it well in hs blog today – take a look at http://avc.blogs.com/a_vc/2005/05/parting_shots.html

By: Andy Nardone

Andy Nardone — Wed, 18 May 2005 14:56:41 +0000

Come on Brad, you’ve got to expand on your areas of disagreement. I’ll cut you some slack and assume you’ll address them soon. Or maybe it’s proprietary info!

Nivi, I couldn’t agree more re: extrapolation. When I read “…but demand for new technologies is moribund and will continue to be weak for at least the next five years…” I shuddered.

By: Strategic Board Blog

Strategic Board Blog — Wed, 18 May 2005 10:53:20 +0000

Strategic Matters – HP, IBM, EMC, Oracle and more

Is Oracle Ready for Another Acquisition? – crmbuyer
EMC stings IBM on storage virtualisation – zdnet.com.au
Businesses unprepared for IT disasters – zdnet.co.uk
Tough Talk on HP