Okay, so I can relate to Guy Kawasaki's post on young people trying to get into the venture capital business. He basically says that VC work is for the end of your career, not the beginning and while young you should be focusing on working hard and developing products and gaining experience. This was all started because a young college grad wrote to him telling him that he would like to get some experience in the VC business. I greatly value my education at the Marriott School of Business, but I have to admit that one of the hard parts was listening to all of the guys talk about what they were going to do after they graduated. A lot of them had plans to get in on some startup that was going to make it huge and they were going to be doing all of the things that Guy was talking about (checking their blackberrys while listening to someone pitch, etc). The guys at BYU fell in love with the romantic idea of entrepreneurship. As completely inexperienced as I am, I imagine that there is a lot more work that does along with it that wasn't in the plans. Someone responded to Guy's post by bringing up Mike Moritz, who is undoubtedly an accomplished VC, but didn't meet any of the criteria that Guy had put out. It sounded like a very defensive remark when I don't think that Guy was attempted to make a blanket statement. Instead, Kawasaki specifically referred to to "...all the Biffs, Sebastians, Brooks, and Tiffanys who want to be kingmakers." Those that want to be more than they are right now and are hoping that the VC path will be the one that gets them there. He wasn't speaking to those that are willing to put in the hours or that have natural circumstances leading them that way. He in no way implied that there weren't exceptions. And to his credit, Guy's response was simply: "This proves that you can always find an example to prove or disprove anything." (source) I still try and follow all of those guys from business school and no doubt now as I thought back then that many of them are going to make a huge impact and be very successful, but those are the ones that are working (a lot harder than I am working). Like Chad Blodgett's post on those that "while their companions slept, were toiling upward in the night." These are good people out to make a big difference but just like Shel Silverstein's adaption of the little steam engine that thought he could, "thinking you can just ain't enough."

Labels: entrepreneurship, VC, work