Entrepreneurship and Finance Challenged

Since our VC event in the end of May my partner and I have got a lot of questions from entrepreneurs and finance professionals. People have been asking questions like “What is the state of the VC industry and high-tech entrepreneurship”, “Is this really a great time to start companies”, “Does VC really work; is there real upside for entrepreneurs to get VC funded”, or “Aren’t VC and high-tech dead”

Those are important questions which have generated vivid discussions.

Link between downturn, entrepreneurship, new ventures, venture capital, disruptive business models and technologies, new emerging markets, and turbulence between all of those generate an exciting mix. I have noticed it is not easy to give short and clarifying answer. Only the transformation of VC industry takes quite a bit time to be explained for those who are not familiar with VC industry.

Few days ago I got back to a video interview that I have seen many times. It is a video in which Charlie Rose had a conversation with entrepreneur and software engineer Marc Andreessen, a co-founder and chairman of Ning and an investor in several startups including Digg, Plazes, and Twitter. He is best known as co-author of Mosaic, and founder of Netscape, and he is on the Board of Directors of Facebook and eBay. He has also recently raised new $300 million VC fund with his longtime investing partner Ben Horowitz.

He gives quite a thorough answer to most of raised questions. You should really take your time and check this interview. You can find it here.