Young Whipper Snapper vs. Corporate Veterans
Now that Yahoo! Answers is in GA, I have some time to devote to this blog again. Here is one for the Rants About Working in the Valley section.
I’ve seen this happen numerous times in my years in the Valley.
1. Young whipper-snapper creates company.
2. VC funds company.
3. Company enjoys early momentum & success.
4. VC places “veteran” mgmt team above young whipper-snapper.
5. Company becomes corporate and loses momentum.
6. Young whipper snapper gets blamed for losing momentum, is pushed out.
7. “Veteran” mgmt team gets credit for selling company to Big Behemoth.
Repeat
Young whipper-snapper creates another company.
……
While young whipper-snapper probably could use a few key veterans in the industry to grow the company to the next level, it always seems to be a mistake to give up the CEO spot, at least not until you’ve made your billion, and you don’t really care.
August 3rd, 2006 at 8:21 am
The moral of the story - don’t accept VC capital unless you have to! If you have to, then it’s either because a) you’re doing so well that you’re still going to make a lot of money anyway or b) you’ve started a business that wasn’t as scalable as you once thought with the resources at hand and therefore it’s your own doing!
August 16th, 2006 at 2:23 pm
I just got back from SES in San Jose and I really enjoyed the Social Search: Up close with Yahoo. I was hoping you might be able to send me the power point you used in your presentation on del.icio.us. I am looking to figure out exactly how it all works within the Yahoo platform.