VCs: Some are trying to learn the lessons

Many people I talk with and read have little or nothing good to say about venture capitalists, even people who’ve made money off of companies for which venture firms provided the financing. Certainly the VCs, along with nearly everyone else here in Silicon Valley, went a little nuts from 1998 until fairly late in 2000 starting and funding companies which had no possible path to profitability. Some of these people are thoughtful, though, and are currently stepping back and assessing how to move forward once again. There are IMO many, many smart people here, perhaps more than anywhere else when it comes to technology, and while the wind may have slackened, it will surely come back and fill the sails again soon.

Bill Gurley, who as far as I know actually made some real money during that time with Benchmark Capital and Hummer Winblad, writes a weekly column for C|Net and in his latest installment looks at the realities of starting a company aimed at an IPO. Robert von Goeben, another writer/VC (Starter Fuid/Redleaf Group), looks at the current realities and sees that many of the people who lost jobs but not hope or ideas in the dot bomb crash are working steadily, if stealthily, on new projects. He says this group is trying to do the right thing, real customer research and real product development, rather than hit up investors for funding first off. Of course, this is the way things should always have been done but I’m heartened to see that people are getting closer in touch with reality.