On the Road to Recap: | Above the Crowd

the power of imagination and optimism is an amazing and essential part of innovation. But over the years, we’ve become so enamored with the unicorn valuation as the goal, that we started valuing the wrong things and overlooking the fundamental physics of business.

With capital at zero cost, growth at all costs became the mantra. How fast can you gr... See more

There are losses for hedge fund investors with large public portfolios at high-cost bases. An early-stage company whose public holdings fall 25% in value feels less pressure than a crossover firm when its portfolio falls from an 8X multiple-of-money to a 6X multiple-of-money. Public securities of such firms are underwater, and private holdings are ... See more

Venture has been a cottage industry for decades with a lot of participants who believe themselves to be the protectors and deliverers of innovation while sitting on one of the most under-innovated models that exists.

The venture ecosystem went from cottage industry outsider to institutional insider – from a nascent practice to a consensus component of institutional portfolios. The result has been the industrialization–and bankerization–of venture. Firms that make dozens or even hundreds of investments per year, relentlessly focused on assets under management, u... See more