Critics of Micro VCs have been quick to point out one primary difference vs. the traditional VC model as a significant flaw: the rapid capital deployment velocity.  In other words, if Micro VCs are investing in an accelerated pace where […]

Micro VCs are notorious for building large and friendly syndicates.  One or two players decide (sometimes rather quickly) to make a seed-stage investment in a new startup, and as a round comes together they invite in a number of their […]

Before I wrote a couple detailed posts on Micro VCs, I thought I’d write an overview one sharing my broad perspective on this portion of the VC world.  It’s clear that despite the varied terminology (Super Angel, Micro VC, Seed […]

I thought I would share a quick update on my blog about my professional plans.  With the support and encouragement of my Venrock colleagues, I am pleased to share that I am moving on to co-found a new Micro VC […]

I had coffee with an entrepreneur friend the other day who is in the early stages of putting a company together, and he recounted how his informal conversations with a venture capitalist had quickly escalated into a full partner pitch […]

If you ask any VC what they look for in an investment opportunity, they’ll tell you that the people are at the top of their list. Extraordinary companies can’t be built without extraordinary entrepreneurs, especially at the earliest stages. I’d […]

For the past five years, I’ve been organizing a regular event here in Boston called the Web Innovators Group (aka “WebInno”). Every couple months, 700-1000 web & mobile entrepreneurs, techies, startup junkies, and investors gather for one big meetup of […]

Back in 2003 Google acquired Applied Semantics for just over $100M. This startup had a little technology called AdSense which allowed for the presentation of contextually relevant ads on a set of distributed publisher sites. Obviously this moniker lives on […]

Whenever I am navigating through the notorious Boston traffic, I am often reminded of the cognitive bias of illusory superiority. That is, the “above average effect,” which “causes people to overestimate their positive qualities and to underestimate their negative qualities, […]

It’s been almost month or so since the covers have been lifted on the newly public AOL and their newly refocused strategy under the helm of Tim Armstrong.  In a CNBC interview a few weeks ago he explained his vision: […]