🔮 VCs, entrepreneurs & growth
Venture capitalist Vinod Khosla says of his fellow VCs, "Ninety percent really add no value, and I truly believe 70 percent of them reduce the potential of a company." Some entrepreneurs, such as Sridhar Vembu, have avoided VCs altogether and went on to build successful companies. He told Forbes India:
There was only one time I ever looked at a term sheet, and fortunately, I read through the whole thing. I found language that guaranteed an exit or liquidity to the investor in seven years. I asked the VC [venture capitalist] about it, and he told me that was a pretty standard clause and no one would negotiate it. I asked around and found that it was indeed a standard clause. I thought through it and realised that this issue goes back to the question of ‘Who is a venture capitalist?’ because a VC is not really a capitalist in the true sense—‘money broker’ would be a far more accurate term; after all, a real capitalist is not going to collect an annual commission on the money he or she invests...that very idea would be absurd.
Once I made that realisation, it was clear to me that my motivation as a founder would be necessarily different from the motivations of a venture capitalist. I think of a company as an institution, something that would hopefully be around a long time and serve customers, create employment opportunities and take care of communities. For a VC, a company is necessarily a disposable commodity, no matter how much undying love it professes. (Forbes)
Toronto based 1Password didn't raise money from VCs for 14 years. Now, it has raised $200 million in Series A from Accel and other investors. Why now?
“It’s very unusual for a company to get to this sort of scale without taking any capital. We realized that if the company could get to this sort of scale organically, we can’t imagine what could happen if we pushed deeper into enterprise.” ~ Arun Matthew, Accel (Crunchbase)
📰 News/Views
Jabong RIP: Walmart incurred an impairment charge of $290 million on writing off Jabong.com trade name "as a result of a strategic decision to focus on the Myntra.com fashion platform". Key nos: Flipkart bought Jabong for $70 million in cash in 2016. Walmart bought Flipkart for $16 billion last year. (Walmart/ET)
Sachin Bansal puts another Rs 888.5 cr in his investment arm Navi Tech (Livemint)
Humans replace robots: “The flex track solution has proven more reliable, requiring less work by hand and less rework, than what the robots were capable of." (Bloomberg)
Will Apple pass the buck: "Apple signed on 200,000 subscribers to Apple News+ in its first 48 hours in March, but has been stuck in neutral since that time" (CNBC)
Apple could bundle news, TV, and music into one subscription - but this has gotten some content executives worried about margins they will get (Apple Insider)
Trump fights impeachment - on Facebook: “This is a battle over public opinion” ~ David Gergen (Vox)
📊 Numbers
Vodafone's Q2 Net loss ₹50,921.9 crore, revenue ₹10,844 crore (down 3.8%). Airtel Q2 loss ₹23,045 crore, revenue ₹21,131.3 crore (up 5%). Losses as a result of provisions for unpaid dues following Supreme Court judgement.
13 million watched Trump's impeachment hearing live on TV, the first-ever televised.
Vaping caused 2172 lung injuries in US and 42 deaths as of 13 November 2019 (CDC)