Friday, August 07, 2009

So long...so long (since I blogged)

So a LOT has happened in the last year or so. I have launched another product, have shifted sectors within Google. Am working on a crazy new product which is both intense and invigorating, and involves shuttling between Bay Area and Toronto.
And most importantly, I got married :) More about all this later.

All this may explain the lack of blogging to some extent. But the real reason was that I got so immersed in the operational world, that the core motivation to write this blog became at odds with why I started it in the first place.

Initially, it was my chronicle of the journey towards becoming a VC. Now, after a couple of years in the industry, that motivation has become incidental. I am not sure if I want to find the opportunity to be in VC anymore.
Now, before you get me wrong :)... I would like to be in investing and I would love to work with startups, but the intersection of great group, culture, awesome investment thesis, good people, and luck is so small, that I don't think this is an industry choice anymore. If an opportunity works out for you, great! But there are so many I know who just do VC for the heck of it, and are not happy about it.

The few who are doing it and are happy, are those who landed in that small intersection. So, instead of looking, I am just going to do what I like, and if the chips fall in the right place, and I like the opportunity, then I will do it.

This means that I am equally likely to be a VC, entrepreneur, operational guy in a large company, cafe owner or run a bookstore :)

Somewhere along the way, ambitions morph from a specific role to a state of mind. With marriage, good job, happy family, my ambitions are turning...like the leaves outside in Toronto. Its going to be fall.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

"but the intersection of great group, culture, awesome investment thesis, good people, and luck is so small, that I don't think this is an industry choice anymore."

Well, VC has always been a very niche industry and if you are targeting only the top-tier firms, which you should, it's even smaller -- something like 5-15 new hires each year.

Looking back, do you think it would have made more sense to take up your not-so-sexy VC offer(s) right out of Wharton and probably trade up to a better VC firm a couple of years later as against being one of the 300-400 product managers at Google ?

Also, what's your take on joining corporate VC (Cisco, IntelCap specifically) if one doesn't get into top-tier VC straight out of business school ? Many folks have successfully moved from these places to top-tier VC firms at various levels depending on experience and market conditions ?

Look forward to a candid response.

PS: By the way, congratulations on the wedding !