I get this question a great deal. So, both to leverage my own time and to be helpful, I thought I’d write about how I got into the VC industry, and also, try to offer some lessons learned. First up, my job is my hobby and it is my passion. I’ve always loved VC, and
Category: Personal
Buying Facebook
This from the WSJ online: Meanwhile Theophilus Hodges, a 36-year-old property manager, stopped into an E*Trade branch in downtown Chicago on Friday morning specifically to open an account to buy Facebook shares, he said. “If it wasn’t for Facebook I wouldn’t be here,” he said as he left the branch to go to his bank
My Mother and Her Shoe Boxes
This is a hard post to write. Today is May 12. It is the day of my mother’s birthday. She also died, at age 60, on May 12. That day also happened to be Mother’s Day. It was a difficult day with too many coincidences. Soon after she passed away, I was at the funeral
A Roundtable discussion with the Business Czar
Yesterday, I participated in a roundtable discussion on Big Data, led by Greg Bialiecki. He is on the Governor’s team. Wade Roush calls him the “Business Czar” in an article here. I’ve been investing in Big Data, before there was such a label, since 2003: StreamBase, Vertica (sold to HP), Goby (sold to Telenav), VoltDB and Paradigm4.
Entrepreneurship is hard
Entrepreneurship is hard. We are in that part of the VC cycle when entrepreneurship is again “hot” and the popular media is glorifying start-ups. But, I don’t think it’s all that easy. Here’s how hard it can be. I today met with a young entrepreneur. He is from Estonia. He arrived in the U.S. a
A fun dinner
Last night, I had a very enjoyable dinner with two old friends: Andy Palmer and Dave Girouard. Andy and I go way back. He was the CEO I recruited to Vertica in 2005, back when he, Mike Stonebraker and I were working on “big data” before the Big Data label came along and it became