Something that really bothers me about the startup V.C. ecosystem is that I never read things like this from founders. There are lots of blog posts of horror stories about investors, usually from the point of view of other investors' (or people like Steve Blank).
I've heard Fred Wilson say that V.C.'s can't afford to be assholes anymore because it would end up on twitter and their deal flow would dry up overnight. Well... where are they? Where are the scorned founders? Do they not know how to blog? When they get fired unfairly and screwed out of their stock (which does not appear to be that rare) are they banished from the internet? Is there something in their contracts that says they can't talk about being fired or they would have to give up what little scraps of compensation they are left with?
As an outsider, the lack of anything but glowing recommendations of investors from founders makes me think not all is as it seems. Is there an implicit fear of being black listed if you speak up, ending your career as an entrepreneur? Does hackernews, techcrunch, etc all suffer survivorship bias (and not waste a single digital word on the losers)?
You hear the horror stories in personal conversations. No one wants to blog it because people are so interconnected. That VC who screwed you is probably still good friends with lots of other people who you don't want to risk alienating. That said, reputations matter. Entrepreneurs talk. The stories get out eventually.
I've heard Fred Wilson say that V.C.'s can't afford to be assholes anymore because it would end up on twitter and their deal flow would dry up overnight. Well... where are they? Where are the scorned founders? Do they not know how to blog? When they get fired unfairly and screwed out of their stock (which does not appear to be that rare) are they banished from the internet? Is there something in their contracts that says they can't talk about being fired or they would have to give up what little scraps of compensation they are left with?
As an outsider, the lack of anything but glowing recommendations of investors from founders makes me think not all is as it seems. Is there an implicit fear of being black listed if you speak up, ending your career as an entrepreneur? Does hackernews, techcrunch, etc all suffer survivorship bias (and not waste a single digital word on the losers)?
Where are they?