Читать книгу The Business of Venture Capital - Mahendra Ramsinghani - Страница 14

There are no experts (nor will there ever be) in the world of venture capital. It's like the list of top Hollywood stars or top-performing mutual funds — each year, you have someone new at the top. In this constant churn, we are all learning this craft, and apprenticeship is the name of this daily practice. Those at the top are humbled by the forces of the unknown: risk and uncertainty. In recent times, their own arrogance and exploitative behavior have brought their downfall. And those at the bottom of the pyramid are striving — a combination of luck, some skill, huge networks, and the advantages of market timing lift them up.

Jorge Luis Borges wrote, “I am all the writers that I have read, all the people that I have met, all the women that I have loved; all the cities that I have visited, all my ancestors.”³ With all that and more, being a storyteller at heart, exposure to this business makes it easier for me to share the lessons. Having tasted all three layers of the founder-GP-LP cake as a practitioner in Silicon Valley and having invested in over a hundred companies over the past decade, I have made a lot, lost a lot, and learned a lot. These lessons, some very expensive ones, are offered in this book. In my quest to learn the nuances of this business, I have compiled insights of proven investors from firms like A16Z, Benchmark, First Round, the Foundry Group, True Ventures, Sequoia Capital, and Union Square Ventures, to name a few. I have also woven these with the wisdom of investment giants like Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Nicholas Nassem Taleb because their observations can be applied to most parts of our business and life. And finally, I sprinkled in some wisdom from philosophers and Nobel Laureates (like Bob Dylan).

Having co-invested with some of the best-in-class, and occasionally with the pseudo-intellectuals, opportunists, and carpetbaggers, you experience the people problem in our business. You never know the true nature of a person until you reach the extremes of success or failure. Big exits drive greed. Failure gets everyone scampering away. Blame is pinned on some macro-event, China, or circumstance. Amidst these roller-coaster rides, I learned two things well: (a) how to avoid the self-serving and the greedy and (b) where I could not avoid, I mastered the art of projectile vomiting.

As Rudyard Kipling wrote in his poem, “If”:⁴

If you can make one heap of all your winnings

And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,

And lose, and start again at your beginnings

And never breathe a word about your loss…

Yup, I've experienced a bit of that. So those are some good reasons why I'm qualified to write such a book.

If you feel the ROI on this book has not been to your high expectations, dear reader, I am sorry I have wasted your time with this rambling repository of riffs, anecdotes, and generally available kitschy stuff. And yes, I'm happy to refund you a full amount. Or make a donation to a charity of your choice. For all others who get featured on that Forbes Midas List after reading a page or two of this book, do feel free to send me a few points of that carry. I'm saving up to buy a winery in Hawaii as I approach my retirement years. Aloha to health, happiness, harmony, peace, abundance, and carry.