Awesome news, I'm a big fan of his posts and his track-record as an entrepreneur/investor. He bleeds startups.
Just looking at his LinkedIn profile to get a sense of his career path and where it's taken him (http://linkedin.com/profile/view?id=56309)... guess he's 41 years old? (since he started undergrad in 1989)
That must mean SiteAdvisor was acquired when he was 36. I know age doesn't mean much, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, esp after reading that Fast Company article on Paul Graham. I think all too often startup founders forget that big wins don't happen overnight, there's something to be said for training and having a long time horizon.
This makes me kind of sad (selfishly) because a16z and Chris Dixon were two of my favorite investors; this increases the awesomeness of the combined entity, but reduces the number of potential great investors out there.
Big congrats to both Chris and AH. But why not have Chris open up a NYC office? With more and more VC funds opening up satellite offices in New York, it seems silly to move one of the city's best to Silicon Valley.
On a side note, I found it interesting that Andreessen wasn't aware of the laptop stickers thing. It's pretty huge on the West Coast too. Sticker-littered laptops are a common sight in Silicon Valley hackathons.
Wow, that's awesome. It's a huge win for Andreesen Horowitz but also the bay area since it looks like he'll be making SF his primary residence (with the secondary being NYC).
I'd be interested to see whether the NYC connection was part of why a16z offered him the job. Depending on how you read the announcement it could either be a huge win for NYC or a huge loss. Probably need to wait for some more info from people closer to the source to find out.
I dunno about this. From his postings, cdixon seems like a reasonable and thoughtful investor and business builder. Can you really see him pouring $15M into rap genius? Or $100M into github? Or $40M into Fab? Seems like a bad mix. Or perhaps, a16z has lost its way amongst the hype machine it has helped resurrect. Perhaps, cdixon can bring a16z back to the thought processes and valuations that drove some of their earlier plays.
Out of anyone I've met personally in NYC, Rap Genius dudes seem by far the smartest investment. Hard to make sweeping calls like that until you see numbers, meet the founders, and hear about the vision.
It's not really a sweeping call. I'm not criticizing AH's picks, just their outrageous valuations. Anecdotally, I've heard they've outbid others by multiples in some cases. When you pump too much money into a growing business, Fab, or a largely built out one, Github, you create unrealistic goals for further growth. Managers at these shops no longer go after high ROI projects, but instead feel pressured to hit the home runs that can justify their valuations. At more reasonable valuations, these companies leaders would be better decision makers and thus increase the probability of long term success for their respective businesses.
Make no mistake about it, I believe AH and the unrealistic valuations they have imposed upon the sector is bad for tech in the medium and long term.
As far as their high early returns go, one could argue any growing fund (be it VC, PE, or HF) has high early returns. It's called survivorship bias.
As for the Skype exit, these sales may become much more difficult with the impending tax reform. Companies will be under a lot of pressure to pay out big dividends in 2012, rather than risk higher taxes in 2013. Reducing the tech sectors internal cash hoards could put a lid of exit prices paid by GOOG,MSFT,AMZN,AAPL,CSCO (and other giants).
The flip side of less cash in corporate coffers means more cash in investor hands that could be put to work in the IPO market. Now if we can only IPO solid companies at reasonable valuations, there is some long term hope to avoid boom/bust.
People seem to make fun of lots of a16z's investments; however, their returns have been excellent.. I seem to recall people ridiculing/questioning their skype investment as well.
I think another thing that people forget when they talk about a16z is the fact that they seem to be quite hands on and they make a point out of turning technical founders into CEOs. Chris Dixon makes a point of the former fact in his blog post, and Ben Horowitz makes mention of the latter point in his interview with Kevin Rose on the last Foundation podcast.
Rather than 'picking winners' I think part of their success probably stems from the fact that they actually had a material effect in helping to create winners with something more than just providing capital - I wouldn't be surprised if some of their more dubious investments pivot into something else and find success. Definitely happened with their investment in Burbn which pivoted into Instagram, and Rap Genius has already announced that there are a number of directions they will probably move in.
I think a lot of money got thrown around too quickly and now investors are being much more wary. With TechStars NYC going on hiatus, and things like this happening, sounds like trouble ahead in NYC.
Find it more interesting though how critical of consumer products cdixon has been lately in his blog posts, and how founder collective's seed investments seem to be very b2b focused lately, and yet he's going to be dealing with mostly consumer internet it sounds like.
I love how humble entrepreneurs like Chris are taking on the traditional gentlemen's club (read British upper class men in the 18th century) that the VC industry still is. Hope.
Awesome news, I'm a big fan of his posts and his track-record as an entrepreneur/investor. He bleeds startups.
Just looking at his LinkedIn profile to get a sense of his career path and where it's taken him (http://linkedin.com/profile/view?id=56309)... guess he's 41 years old? (since he started undergrad in 1989)
That must mean SiteAdvisor was acquired when he was 36. I know age doesn't mean much, but it's something I've been thinking about a lot lately, esp after reading that Fast Company article on Paul Graham. I think all too often startup founders forget that big wins don't happen overnight, there's something to be said for training and having a long time horizon.