Fred Wilson would rather be in New York to pull together deals for software-driven mobile internet-based businesses. These businesses can get created much more easily in New York, he's certain, with lots of talented, entrepreneurial people from many diverse worlds. Still, Wilson laments the bypassing of venture-capital "rules of thumb," where a couple of people just getting started should be less than 5 million dollars. We're way beyond that now, three-person teams getting 30 to 50 million dollar valuations--and I don't think that's right. Nevertheless, Wilson feels that deals can be found, and that Android will be the dominant mobile platform.
John Doerr contents that Apple's the platform to beat and Silicon Valley is the place to foment deals. Because Google (Android), Apple, Amazon, Facebook, and Twitter are the great platforms on which you will build growing businesses, you'll want to be in the valley, he counters. The valley is a place get a lot of engineering talent, money, and grow big fast. There's never been a better time than now to build a company, so John Doerr encourages the audience of Web 2.0. to dream.
Fred Wilson says, while this is not a good time for the angels, it's great for the entrepreneurs. Investors are throwing out sharp elbows to protect their best deals. They both agree, this is an unusual and exciting time. Right in the middle of a huge third wave, Doerr finds that markets are larger, entrepreneurs are better, ideas are better, and markets are bigger. The combination of smart phones, social graphs, and the friction-free way that businesses can grow with very little capital, makes building an internet treasure harder. No question, they both nod, we're in another bubble... or is a boom?
Listen to this show to catch the moment they momentarily send the audience twittering with their (faux) major merger announcement. In the end, the three come together in mutual admiration--just in time to respond to confrontation from the audience during the wide-ranging Q and A.
Fred Wilson began his career in venture capital in 1987. He has focused exclusively on information technology investments for the past 17 years. From 1987 to 1996, Fred was first an Associate and then a General Partner at Euclid Partners, a New York based, early stage, venture capital firm founded in 1970. At Euclid Partners, Fred was responsible for a number of investments, including Freeloader, Multex, PowerCenter Systems and UCA&L. Fred has a Bachelors degree in Mechanical Engineering from MIT and an MBA from The Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania. Fred is married with three kids and lives in New York City. - O'Reilly Media, Inc.
John Doerr joined Intel in 1974 just as they invented the famous “8080” 8 bit microprocessor. At Intel he held various engineering, marketing and management assignments, and was one of their top-ranked sales executives. In 1980 he joined Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers and sponsored a series of investments including Compaq, Cypress, Intuit, Netscape, Lotus, Millennium Pharmaceuticals, S3, Sun Microsystems, Amazon.com, Symantec and Google. John’s interests include the Internet, green/clean technology, biotechnology, genomics and improving K-12 education. He holds Bachelor’s and Master’s Degrees in Electrical Engineering from Rice University and an MBA from the Harvard Graduate School of Business Administration. - O'Reilly Media, Inc.
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