About Social Media Today
Posts by Fred Wilson Subscribe 
Why We Spend So Much Time On Policy Stuff
Last month I wrote a post mentioning that we have an activist in residence at USV. And I write a lot here at AVC about the policy stuff we have been working on. It might seem to some that we are more like policy think tank or adovacy organization...
Venture Capital Returns
This post is for everyone who thinks venture capital is an easy business. I'd like to dispel that notion. Here are short term and long term returns for the venture capital business over the past ten years compared to the public equity markets in the...
Advice for 2013: Deliver On Your Promises
There has been a lot of discussion out there about the Series A crunch, the consumer sector falling out of favor, VCs getting more conservative, the need to focus on revenues instead of users, and so on and so forth. All of this is going on and the...
Arduino, 3D Printers, Kickstarter, and BitCoin
AVC regular Dan Ramsden posted a thougtful essay on GigaOM yesterday. After I read it, I sent Dan an email and I said "do you think big beats little in this phase we are in?" Dan replied that he did and asked me what I thought. I think David beats...
Nobody Is Crying For You When You Are Worth Billions
I did a talk with Bill Werde at Billboard's FutureSound conference a few weeks ago. The entire talk is online (in two parts) here. If you go to 7:45 minutes in on the first video (embedded below) you will get to a conversation about Pandora and...
ad:tech--Chat with Dave Morgan, Founder of Simulmedia
Dave Morgan is one of my favorite entrepreneurs. We've backed him twice at USV and he is also a very good friend to my and my partners. Dave has been building businesses at the intersection of madison avenue and the internet since the mid 90s. So...
The Power Of Diversification in Startups
I have written about this topic before but it's important and I want to say it again. Investing in startups is risky. If you make just one investment, you are likely going to lose everything. If you make two, you are still likely to lose money. If...
What Do You Look For?
I'm asked this question all the time. Is it team? Is it the idea? Is it product? Is it market? The answer is that it is all of them and most importantly it is the way they all come together in a single company. Why is this the right team to do this...
Tolerance and Prosperity
Yesterday, my partners and I invited Paul Romer over to USV for lunch. For those that don't know, Paul is a leading thinker in the world of economics and currently a Professor at NYU. It was a fascinating conversation. My favorite part of it was...
What's Wrong With Sensationalist Media
Check out this email I got from a major media company this past week: I was just talking to my boss about New York's tech scene and the types of stories I should go after. He wants me to get a little personal like digging into how founders...
Should You Introduce Yourself To Me At A Bar? [MVP Daily Forum]
Saw this question on Hacker News today: Went to a talk by a VC who is very active in my area. Didn't get a chance to introduce myself after the talk (there were < 25 ppl at the talk but the VC had to run). A few hours later, was out for drinks...
Want To Be A VC? Start A Company.
Steve Blank has a great post up on his blog suggesting that VCs should require startup CEO experience in their partners' resumes. He quotes from me in that post but I'm not going to state which one came from me. You can guess if you want. You might...
