2010年众多硅谷天使秘密会议统一对投资人有利的TermSheet模板,被曝光弄得满城风雨。
So A Blogger Walks Into A Bar…
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-bar/
Yesterday I was tipped off about a “secret meeting” between a group of “Super Angels” being held at Bin 38, a restaurant and bar in San Francisco. “Do not come, you will not be welcome,” I was told.
So I did what any self respecting blogger would do – I drove over to Bin 38, parked my car and walked in.
in the back of the restaurant in a private room was a long oval table. Sitting around the table, Godfather style, were ten or so of the highest profile angel investors in Silicon Valley. These investors, known as “super angels” because they have mostly moved on to launch small venture funds of their own, are all friends of mine. I knew each person in the room very, very well.
I certainly didn’t think anything was amiss and I expected a friendly hello and an invitation to sit down for a drink or two before being shooed off while they talked about whatever they thought should be kept off record. But instead it went something like this:
Me: Hey!
Person who was talking: oh, oh no.
Me: Hi. I heard you guys were here and I wanted to stop by and say hi.
Them: dead silence.
Me: so….
Them: Deafening silence.
Me: This is usually where you guys say “sit down, have a drink.”
Them: not one sound
Me: This is awkward. I guess I’ll be leaving now.
I’ve never seen a more guilty looking group of people. But that alone isn’t that big of a deal. Lively conversations often die quickly when I arrive, and I’ve learned not to take it personally. But I did sniff around a little afterwards, and have spoken to three people who were at that meeting. And that’s where things got interesting.
This group of investors, which together account for nearly 100% of early stage startup deals in Silicon Valley, have been meeting regularly to compare notes. Early on it was mostly to complain about a variety of things. But the conversation has evolved to the point where these super angels are actually colluding (and I don’t use that word lightly) to solve a number of problems, say multiple sources who are part of the group and were at the dinner. According to these souces, the ongoing agenda includes:
- Complaints about Y Combinator’s growing power, and how to counteract competitiveness in Y Combinator deals
- Complaints about rising deal valuations and they can act as a group to reduce those valuations
- How the group can act together to keep traditional venture capitalists out of deals entirely
- How the group can act together to keep out new angel investors invading the market and driving up valuations.
- More mundane things, like agreeing as a group not to accept convertible notes in deals (an entrepreneur-friendly type of deal).
- One source has also said that there is a wiki of some sort that the group has that explicitly talks about how the group should act as one to keep deal valuations down.
At least two people attending were extremely uneasy about the meetings, and have said that they are only there to gather information, not participate.
So what’s wrong with this?
Collusion and price fixing, that’s what. It is absolutely unlawful for competitors to act together to keep other competitors out of the market, or to discuss ways to keep prices under control. And that appears to be exactly what this group is doing.
This isn’t minor league stuff. We’re talking about federal crimes and civil prosecutions if in fact that’s what they’re doing. I had a quick call with an attorney this morning, and he confirmed that these types of meetings are exactly what these laws were designed to prevent.
I’m not going to say who was at the meeting since at least a couple of the attendees are saying they were extremely uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. But like I said, it included just about every major angel investor in Silicon Valley.
On a side note, this is a difficult post to write, because I call nearly every person in that room a friend. But these actions are so completely inappropriate it has to be called out.
Dave McClure Says Ron Conway Is Throwing Super Angels Under The Bus
SEP. 23, 2010
http://www.businessinsider.com/d ... nder-the-bus-2010-9
Angelgate just got interesting again.
In a tweet a few minutes ago, Dave McClure, one of just two super angels who admits to attending the controversial meeting at which Mike Arrington alleges investors discussed fixing valuation prices, suggested that uber-angel Ron Conway is turning on the group of alleged conspirators:
Ron is throwing us under a bus. and it's chickenshit that he writes that after David Lee comes to both meetings.
David Lee is one of Ron Conway's partners at SV Angel. It has been established that Conway was not at the meeting in question, but apparently SV Angel was represented.
This has obviously been a bad few PR days for super angels, but it's difficult to see how Ron will be able to distance himself from this if David Lee was really a part of the meetings.
McClure quickly deleted the tweet, which appears to have been a failed direct message. He quickly followed up with:
sigh. bad day. sorry folks
Since this post was first published, he has followed up with:
well so much for the slow news day.
and:
@alleyinsider thanks guys. kisses ![](static/image/smiley/default/smile.gif)
We are not aware of any public statement issued by Ron Conway on the matter as of yet, so we suspect McClure is referencing something Ron has written to other angels privately. If any readers have information on what or where Ron has written about this, please let us know.
Here's a screenshot of the tweet from before it was deleted:
Fire in The Valley, Fire in My Belly... and Yes, Mike, I Have Stopped Beating My Wife.
http://500hats.typepad.com/500bl ... -in-the-valley.html
Wednesday, September 22, 2010
So i've been debating whether to write this post all day.
Unfortunately i probably have more balls than sense, but it drives me fucking insane to see some bullshit superangel conspiracy theory get whipped into a frenzy by people who weren't there, have no idea what the hell was discussed, and are ready to believe anything when someone yells FIRE!
so here goes nothing... first a few clarifications:
- mike arrington is a friend, an imposing figure, and a hard-nosed, hard-working journalist. that said, he's dead fucking wrong about there being some story around " collusion" (def'n). makes for great red meat on TechMeme & Twitter, but it's just so much horseshit.
- yesterday i was invited to a dinner with some well-known startup investors to discuss the latest & greatest in tech & startups. the agenda was drinks, good food, & shooting the breeze... it wasn't to collude, to price fix, to put out a hit on Paul Graham, or generally bust a cap in any founder's ass (ok maybe Zuck & Jobs have it coming, but people might notice if we shoved them furtively into Davy Jones' Locker). Yes: it was a private affair, and No: mike wasn't invited. neither was Barack Obama, your mom, nor any of 500 other friggin' awesome people in silicon valley or around the world. meh... whatever -- i don't get to go to every cool kid party in the valley either. sorry, mike... but if you want, i'll knock one back with you before we go onstage Monday morning at Disrupt.
- startups & investors bitch & moan about price (aka valuation) all day long, but i don't really give a damn what other people think most of the time. buy or don't buy. negotiate or don't. This is America, This is Capitalism, and it's a Free Fucking Country. me? i like convertible notes just fine, albeit usually with some kind of cap. sometimes a deal is "too expensive", sometimes entrepreneurs really are "awesome". usually, we're all W-W-W-WRONG about 10 different reasons why shit is gonna fail anyway. you still in? yeah, me too... so ante up, mofo. you're here in Silicon Valley because you're trying to change the world, or at least build a better mouse trap. either way, odds are against us. deal with it.
- from an entrepreneur's perspective, Paul Graham & YCombinator are killing it right now... and bully for them. sometimes you got leverage, sometime you don't. regardless, PG should be commended for innovating on the venture model, and for encouraging startups to push the envelope -- on both product, and price. still, people should realize the wheel comes around for everyone, and it's a small valley. people on both sides shouldn't get too comfortable, and shouldn't try to fuck with each other too much. Personally i prefer to leave a little more on the table for the other person, and focus more on building a long-term relationship and less on the tactical zero-sum crap.
regardless: haters gonna hate, players gonna play. just focus on the important stuff (build product, solve problems, get customers, make money... and don't be evil... much ;)
- my fund 500 Startups is investing in 7 or 8 YC startups out of the recent batch, and they are some very smart young entrepreneurs with some great business opportunities. most of them will fail, but that won't stop them from starting, or me from investing. and sure, the pre-money is definitely on the high side compared to rest of market / previous years. so be it. Mercedes Benz ain't cheap either.... but that shit is SHINY. if you don't like it, don't buy it.
- innovation & investing is not about price. it's about finding great entrepreneurs to build solid companies, and solve customer problems. price matters, but innovation & execution matter a helluva lot more. find good people, bet on them, help them succeed. try to improve the ecosystem, and try not to be a dick (that last one is actually hard... it's sort of easy to be an asshole as an investor).
- at the dinner, there was a fair amount of kvetching about convertible notes, capped or not, hi/lo valuation, optimal structure of term sheets, where the industry was headed, who was innovating and who wasn't, and 10 million other things of which 3 were kind of interesting and 9,999,997 weren't unless you like arguing about 409a stock option pricing.
however, in addition to pricing & valuation, some of the more interesting things discussed were:
1) how can we increase access to startup capital (new geographies, new investors, Second Market, etc)
2) how can we increase M&A for startups & increase awareness of startups for non-tech acquirers
3) how can we increase startup innovation (more smart entrepreneurs, cool new platforms, better techniques for mentoring / entrepreneurship)
of course, none of that shit is nearly as sexy or exciting as how we're going to screw over some n00b startup founder at YC, beat the crap out of some clueless old dinosaur VCs whose IRR sucks ass, or hide our secret tinfoil cabal / conspiracy at Bin 38 from the Valiant Fourth Estate.
in short: if it Bleeds, it Leads... and Fuck. That. Noise. about Fair & Balanced, right?
on the other hand -- some folks really are trying to innovate in venture capital, support & invest in thousands of entrepreneurs, that employ millions of people, who create billions of dollars in value, for customers and shareholders around the world. we ain't trying to kill the Man in the Arena, mike... we're rooting for him (or her).
naah, screw that shit & lets get back to Collusion cuz that sells newspapers.
and like Gordon said: Greed is Good... even if we're counting page views instead of dollars.
as for lil ol' me?
i'm here to Disrupt, motherfucker. so go right ahead & Hate On Me.
Finger-Pointing, Emails, Deleted Tweets, Rage. AngelGate Is Far From Over
http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/23/angelgate/
On the surface, it seemed like the situation that has come to be known as AngelGate was dying down. Since we broke the news about the secret meetings between angel investors where they supposedly agree to agree on things, a lot has been said on both sides. Mike said what he knew, and one of the angel investors present at the meeting he crashed, Dave McClure, came out in opposition to the allegations. But things have gotten more interesting this evening.
McClure sent out a tweet earlier that was clearly meant to be a direct message. It read, “Ron is throwing us under a bus. and it’s chickenshit that he writes that after David Lee comes to both meetings.” He quickly deleted the tweet, but not before plenty of people saw it, responded to it, retweeted it, and it was syndicated elsewhere.
It doesn’t take someone deeply engulfed in the situation to figure out what McClure is talking about. Clearly, Ron Conway, founder of SV Angel and the most prominent angel investor in Silicon Valley, sent an email to other angels involved in the situation. Clearly, that email was in opposition to McClure’s stance that those at the meeting were doing nothing wrong. David Lee, who McClure mentions, is a partner at SV Angel and was at the meeting.
McClure’s tweet also confirms that there were two meetings of these angels. Mike showed up to the second one.
McClure has since tried to play off his failed DM. “sigh. bad day. sorry folks,” he tweeted immediately after he deleted the tweet. “well so much for the slow news day,” he then tweeted right after that. Indeed. Expect more fall-out from this in the coming days.
|