Working in SFO
I am spending the week in San Francisco at one our project sponsor’s sites. I am learning a new technology from the guys who invented it, so its really cool. Today we took the tour of the site with a senior R&D guy, and it was absolutely amazing. The complexity of their operations was something I hadn’t quite expected or fathomed. Towards the end of the day it occured to me that if I were to build this company today, it didn’t stand a chance. No venture capitalist would invest in so many diverse technologies to give the unbeatable edge it has over its competitors today. Considering it is an industry leader, and has remained so for the last 15 years or so, there is clearly something wrong with the VC models that we are following. The VCs are looking for that silver bullet without considering the fact that any bullet could be the silver bullet if they invested in getting the right situations. Why are VCs so risk averse? On one hand, we realistically cannot expect them to dole out billions in good faith and hope, on the other the few millions they part with is not adequate to build up any kind of engineering advantage that can sustain competitive development. No wonder all the engineers are so disillusioned about starting out on their own. Is there a solution to this problem that I am not aware of?
