Friday, October 21, 2016

"Bros Funding Bros: What’s Wrong with Venture Capital "

"The venture capital industry is stuck in yesteryear—the same people, living the same lives and having the same experiences making largely the same decisions. This sameness may have been a strength, but now it is creating blindspots. For every idea we fund, how many great ideas don’t even get a sounding board because we can’t relate to the problem or the entrepreneur? How much better off would we be if we had a larger lens from which to examine a broader class of entrepreneurs and ideas? My suspicion is greatly...
From the foundations and NGOs that are eradicating poverty and taking care of the world’s worst off, to companies like Facebook, Google and Apple that are inventing the future while looking after our best off, they have all explicitly decided to become less consensus driven and less homogeneous. They have found this increases creativity and drives business results. In turn, they are doing the ambitious, groundbreaking work that we used to do. And even though they have more work to do, when you compare the complexion of these leaders to the leaders within our industry, we look like total laggards...
We need a wake up call on Sand Hill Road. We need to recapture our potential and open the doors. Invite more people into the decision making: young people, Blacks, Latinos, females, LGBT and others who aren’t necessarily part of the obvious majority.  Surround ourselves with a more diverse set of experiences and maybe we will prioritize a more diverse set of things. Maybe we will find more courage to do the hard things.
Related to: Problem with Silicon Valley; Spoke up at Google nothing happened
(credit to AM) 

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