This curated selection of quotes from Marc Andreessen provides insight into how Venture Capital works. Insights include:
- Almost all of a VC's return comes from one or two disproportionate successes.
- The breakout successes are from areas that were against the grain of consensus.
- Success begets success as it attracts more capital, talent & word-of-mouth. Also failure begets failure.
- VCs must go to meetings to learn rather than teach.
- Startup teams trump ideas because teams can adapt.
- Declining to invest in winners is a bigger VC mistake than investing in losers. Most VCs turned down most big successes.
- VCs spend most of their time trying to fix their losers and not on helping their winners [Should they change that? -Ed]
- The shift to software will accelerate innovation because it's so easy to make & change.
And from the commentary:
- The benefit of disruptive technology is often in breakout value or dramatic cost decreases. This is missed from measures like GDP (which may actually decline with cost reduction) because those measures only capture transaction value, not consumer value (consumer surplus).
