Will Blackstone’s Hilton Deal Put Others in Play?

“I’ve decided to write a book,” I told my wife over a year ago.

She gave me that what-the-bleep-are-you-talking-about look.  You may be familiar with your spouse.

“You’ve what?”

“I’ve decided to write a book,” I repeated, slightly less confidently.

“On what?”

“Venture capital and entreneurship.”

“Why?”

“Well, when I was an entrepreneur, I couldn’t find any good books on how this mysterious capital-raising process worked and how to harness the resources and knowledge of the VC industry to help build my start-up. Now that I’ve seen it from the other side, I want to explain to entrepreneurs how it all works to help them be successful....

Recently an entrepreneur/investor/blogger extraordinaire I admire by the name of Chris Dixon touched on the two general paradigms people/institutions can adopt towards one another when conducting business. He first referenced the transactional/legalistic approach wherein labor is exchanged for money in the form of a contract that is enforced by organizations, (especially the legal system). The other approach is one based on trust, verbal agreements, reputation and is “enforced” (so to speak) by the community. As Dixon points out, the world of startups is overwhelmingly governed by the trust/reputation/community approach. 

Let’s just juxtapose these very different paradigms against the backdrop of the modern American university.  As we’ve established in e...

All eyes are on Toyota’s recall of 8.5 million vehicles due to faulty gas pedals and brakes. The recall has sparked congressional hearings, a probe by the U.S. Department of Transportation, possible criminal charges stemming from a federal grand jury investigation and numerous civil lawsuits, all in the name of driver safety.

This aggressive response to Toyota’s mistakes is appropriate, even though the human toll from its miscues has been, thankfully, relatively modest – 34 alleged deaths and a few hundred injuries. Not to downplay this misery, but in stunning contrast, consider this: More than 100,000 Americans die annually in U.S. hospitals because of avoidable medical errors, according to the Institute of Medicine (IOM), which also says that medical errors rank as Americ...

I’ll never forget my first marketing class at business school. Our professor peered at us with an intense glare as he pushed back on our standard, “chip shot” comments. At one point he asked the guy next to me to opine on the case we were discussing, which involved launching a new consumer product. “Well,” my neighbor answered confidently, “I think it will be a hit because I can see my mother-in-law buying it.”

“I see,” replied my professor dryly and then turned to the class with a withering look on his face, “Steve appears to have fallen into that fatal trap of ‘Mother In Law Market Research’ - believing this new product will be a hit just because his mother-in-law likes it. Instead, let’s look at ...

Apparently, our work to weed out unscrupulous venture events is not done. Today, I learned that Boston entrepreneurs will be fleeced in order to have the opportunity to pitch to VCs. 

To quote my partner Seth:

“THERE IS NO CIRCUMSTANCE IN WHICH ENTREPRENEURS SHOULD PAY TO PITCH THEIR BUSINESS TO PROSPECTIVE INVESTORS. PERIOD. END OF STORY.”

It’s not just Seth. Much of the credit goes to Jason Calacanis for leading the charge against such practices.  But while Jason was instrumental in dissolving a few pay-for-pitch groups, it seems like this one has managed to survive. (Hopefully not for long).

Name:  Young Startup Ventures Date and Location: April 21st, at the Microsoft New England Research & Develop...

* Nicholas Carson goes deep into Facebook’s founding.

* Private equity firms cheer the return of the “staple.” Critics justifiably shudder.

* Microsoft boss Steve Ballmer: We’re “betting our company” on the cloud. The cloud, meanwhile, declined comment.

* Steve Schwarzman argues against placement agent bans (sure it’s self-serving, but it’s also the correct position). My only quibble is that I wish Schwarzman would have called out corrupt PE pros alongside “corrupt political hacks.” After all, wouldn’t PE p...

* Daniel Henninger: Bring back the robber barrons

* Saying goodbye: New exit strategies for today’s venture capitalists

* Morning Call: U.S. futures point lower, London rises early, European shares keep climbing, the Nikkei gains 0.3% and Hong Kong shares slip.

* America’s most-wired cities

* Larry Cheng: Should Bernie Madoff have charged 1% or 2% fees?

* Maybe it won’t go public this year: HCA’s latest surprise for its bondholders

* President Obama yesterday sent Congress the Volcker Rule language, and it would indeed ban banks ...

* Mark Suster: What’s it like being a venture capitalist?

* Jim McTague: FINRA must heal itself before receiving added responsibilities

* The No Prick Rule: “Hire the good, humble, kind human being first … skill-set second.”

* Morning Call: U.S. futures look flat, London opens higher, European shares climb, the Nikkei gains 0.3% and Hong Kong shares jump nearly 2%.

* Nick Hasell: Have London’s listed private equity firms turned a corner?

* Kevin Kelleher: The spark that could ignite Web M&A

* ABI Research: RFID market to reach $5.3...

Had a few free minutes, so figured I’d put together a list of the year’s largest venture capital deals (so far). Fairly liberal with the term “venture capital,” but that’s why this is an interim list rather than an official/final list.

Of note: Half of the ten companies could fall under the cleantech category. None of them are healthcare…

...

Steve Anderson has been a number of things in his 42 years: a Stanford MBA, a general manager at Starbucks Coffee, a product manager at eBay, a partner at Kleiner Perkins, a senior director at Microsoft.

Right now, he’s one of the best angel investors in Silicon Valley.

Anderson began investing a pool of individual investors’ money in 2006 under the name Baseline Ventures. Since then, he has provided seed funding to 40 companies, a stunning 8 of which have been acquired. This morning, DocVerse, whose software invites users to collaborate on Microsoft Office documents and that had raised ju...