You are right I think you have said it very well…

“I’ve often wondered why some companies, like Oracle or PayPal, produce so many entrepreneurs, whereas others like Microsoft and maybe Google don’t.”

because they might just be smart enough to realize that enjoying the money, giving it to your kids, or just giving it to charity is a much more positive outcome than pissing it away on startups in a market already oversaturated. i’ve been there and done that, the best exits from succesful firms are the ones who don’t believe their own hype, who just take the money and live life. the ones who believe what they read in the press, that they are a breed apart and can turn lead into gold, they are just creating needless stress and misery in their lives…which is exactly what money should preclude!

nathan mhyrvold is the lead these people want to follow - he does a little dabble investing here and there, but he gets excited about cooking. he’s smart enough to know he sat on a bubble, and that bubbles rarely expand under the same ass twice

I started several Internet companies before launching a small venture firm on the side, (Venture Factory) and have seen many XYZ Mafioso with pretty lame pitches over the years. I’ve also been schooled by how hard it is to do VC, even after a few successful startups. I’ve also learned the hard way through a few blown investments alongside the successful ones. Venture investing is not a get rich quick scheme, it is a time tested profession that plays out over seven years to really see who the first batch of winners are. That said, there are plenty of lame VC’s out there who do it for a living. So either way, I am really glad to see more groups like Founders Fund, Foundation Capital, and Series FF stock deals, shaking things up a bit. The industry needs to evolve.

I think that a kind of an answer to your thoughts is that the Google guys will not be entrepreneurs (well, they will be entrepreneurs in VC) - they will fund entrepreneurs who have new ideas. Thus, they don’t have to be innovative in this industry. Financially, they are doing fine, so that now they just can spread small amounts of money (up to 1M) around and see which one will generate the next big thing.

It seems like there’s a big difference between the PayPal alums starting companies, and the Google alums who are bankrolling them. (Miguel Helft’s article in the New York Times closes with Google alum bragging about funding a PayPal alum’s company, which only made me wonder what the other PayPal folks knew about the entrepreneur that the Googler didn’t).

I’ve often wondered why some companies, like Oracle or PayPal, produce so many entrepreneurs, whereas others like Microsoft and maybe Google don’t. The most successful seem to smother their young: on the strength of their rising stock price and their (once-)intense culture, Microsoft and Google retain people until even the most intelligent lose their ability to thrive in the wild.

If it is indeed a NY rip off them im extermely disapointed unless of course you did not know about the NY article.

Just by chance are you able to tell us how many tipoffs or pitches Techcrunch gets a day from semi decent startups ( by semi-decent im ommiting the half backed ones like some dude starting a new blog on blogspot or some kid starting an affiliate selling site ).

its just some of the stories TC covers are pretty lame. Thus the writers I must say go a great job.

Good to know insights into the google mafia. Now we can predict where the next big things come from.

I Would invest in both of them..
Thanks, Nag

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12...../28vc.html

That article is certainly referenced, but only in the 4th paragraph. No doubt post has a unique TC angle on it, but it’s kind of presented as an original TC idea…I just had a laugh when I went to the NY Times site and saw the same story.

In fact, most Google investors have horrible investment records, especially Aydin.

Most of the companies that googlers have started are jokes.

Give it a rest man. If the term “Mafia” in or something ? all I seem to hear about is Paypal mafia , now its google mafia and soon it will be facebook mafia.

Just because a bunch of people worked somewhere in the past and now invest/or start their own thing is nothing new.

It has been done before by netscape people , former excite people , and before them Microsoft people. I happens all the time. No need to group them all together like they are going to rule the world or they have some sort of masterplan. and these people do no have the midus touch. some will fail other will succeed.

It suprises me that you guys get so many hundreds of pitches for coverage from startups yet you write a bunch of junk half the time to fill up the pages.

As Robert Collier said: “Visualize this thing you want. See it, feel it, beileve in it. Make your mental blueprint and BEGIN”.

Good luck to y’all…

Can’t wait to see all these guys roll up in Hummers all iced out with their ‘twenty fours…

Well it doesn’t have to be that dramatic, just something more interesting than the typical VC attire.