Monday, June 07, 2010

Has Venture Captial Gotten Jaded?

Having dinner with some venture capitalist friends recently, they used the phrase "you don't have to eat the dogfood, you just have to know that dogs eat the dogfood." The idea was that venture capitalists themselves didn't have to be passionate about the products or services they were investing in, but instead just had to recognize the passion of others. This was used in reference to companies like foursquare, which were recognized to be popular but which the VCs themselves had no interest in using personally. This to me was a long cry from the earlier days of VC when investors invested in companies and technologies they personally has passion for. Has VC evolved into something entirely new ...?

1 comment:

ZBS11 said...

Felix Salmon notes that VCs may not only "not eat the dogfood" in terms of product, but also manage to view the culture and management practices of their portfolio companies with disdain.