Fred Wilson (AVC)

I highly recommend a four year vesting period for any startup ownership, as described by Fred Wilson here:

http://avc.com/2010/11/employee-equity-vesting/

Everytime I've seen a company do something else, somebody leaves early on with too much stock. Then on the next round it has to be negotiated down anyway. The amount always ends up similar to what a 4 year vest would have been!

So if you've done one full year of work, and so has she... And you each "own" half, that means you would keep a quarter of your half that has vested if you walk away. i.e. 12.5%

Hmm, that still sounds like quite a lot to be honest, but it really depends on how much you've actually both built. Maybe you haven't done a year of full time startup work.

My view is, BTW, not from Silicon Valley, but UK companies.

> An innovative, new upshot getting sucked up/ blatantly ripped off by an established player with more muscle, money (and in this case - users) to throw at the problem is not a great incentive for entrepreneurs.

> http://avc.com/2017/02/the-end-of-the-level-playing-field/

These two things aren't the same. The former is complaining about larger companies copying features (where no legislation exists) and the latter is complaining about incurring legislation that impedes competition.

So what do you want? Legislation or not? You can't have both.

> is not a great incentive for entrepreneurs.

There are plenty of opportunities for entrepreneurs to create new technologies, but the gold rush for creating the next big social app may indeed be over.

Disasters are also opportunities. Inventing and re-inventing, in a hurry, can force us to put in 'good enough' solutions, which end up iterating into true innovation and paradigm changes.

This is not a "schools are broken" rant. There are schools, staff and teachers which do tremendous, underappreciated work. With 4 kids between the ages of 9 and 19, I have seen it first-hand.

There is always room for improvement and improving remote education would make learning opportunities available to many more people, and be a great experience for many.

The 'conversation' theme in this post for example:
https://seths.blog/2020/03/the-conversation/

And the 'collaboration' theme in this post:
https://avc.com/2020/03/teaching-online/

http://avc.com/2012/09/indeed/

> Indeed has always been the quiet one. Nobody really talks about them. But as I have said a number of times on this blog, they are the most complete company in our portfolio. They have it all. Two world class entrepreneurs as founders. A solid management team all up and down the company. A product that is beloved and services more than 80mm people worldwide every month. An engineering team that has kept the service up with literally no down time that I can ever remember. A business model that, like Google's, is the best on the Internet. Revenues, profits, customer satisfaction, shareholder value. They built a fortress and I am just so happy to have had a front row seat watching them build it.

I don't think this is the best advice for everyone:

"How would I become a VC? By being one: pull some of my own money, invest it in startups, and build my track record. That’s how. I can’t imagine any other way."

I can definitely imagine another way - the way I suppose the people that went to the event being discussed ("how to become a VC.") might have in mind: learn the ropes from someone experienced, learn what's needed (lots of legal, economical and technical stuff I didn't even know existed before reading stuff like the A VC blog http://www.avc.com/ ), learn from their mistakes and successes (and no, I don't think the Internet is a good enough substitute for the actual experience).

I believe that derives directly from what people like Fred Wilson or Mike Arrington have been saying:

"As I was reading Josh Kopelman‘s excellent post on the seed boom and Series A bust, I got thinking of some words of wisdom Mike Arrington once shared with me. He said “numbers always ruin a good story.”

What Mike meant by this is you can raise a seed (or Series A) on a story. But at some point, you will have numbers; users, user growth, revenues, and revenue growth. You will also have a burn rate. And those numbers will become the thing you are judged on and your nice story will be “ruined” by the numbers."

http://avc.com/2015/03/numbers-can-ruin-a-good-story/