I’m a co-founder of two startups. Both have the same founding team — 3 co-founders; two men, one woman. This is an open letter. I speak on our behalf. To Y Combinator.I believed that you, as an organization, were a force for good in this world. That belief was shattered by the president of YC, Sam Altman on June 2nd, 2017. Pando Daily has the full story here: https://pando.com/2017/07/03/sam-alt-man/ I am speaking directly to you, Sam. I used to hold you in the highest regard. I believed you were a good man who had to make difficult decisions in these trying times. I no longer hold that belief. Your treatment of Sarah Lacy, the founder of Pando Daily, is despicable and vile. Your holding of a grudge is infantile. Your non-apology is not merely a sad joke, it is a testament to your failure as a leader. I thought we were supposed to be building a better world, all of us. [ Medium ] 500 Startups must fight for survival and credibility after Dave McClure’s resignationThe sexual harassment scandal that has led to the official resignation of founding partner Dave McClure from 500 Startups raises the question of what kind of future the firm can have without him. It doesn’t appear 500 Startups is off to a very good start in terms of handling the situation, which became public last Friday as part of a larger New York Timesstory about sexual harassment in Silicon Valley. A blog post on June 30 from CEO Christine Tsai said management changes had been made and that McClure had stepped out of daily operations as the charges came to light. Then McClure wrote a long apology that seemed to draw mix reactions. But the stories they told about the timeline and disclosures didn’t sync with the account of partner Elizabeth Yin, according to an email obtained by TechCrunch. Yin resigned as other accusations of harassment against McClure surfaced, notably in a blog post by entrepreneur Cheryl Yeoh. [ Venture Beat ] Invest early, go global and aim for exits: VC firm Accel explains its investment strategyPartners at global venture firm Accel VC firm say it's all about making fast but well-prepared decisions. "Venture capital is a boutique business - it's about relationships, emotion and instinct. It's hard to institutionalise," Sonali De Rycker, a partner at Accel, says. "But we asked ourselves: how can you help your founders go global if you haven't done it yourself?" Upfront Ventures, L.A. County's biggest venture capital firm, just got biggerLos Angeles County’s most prominent start-up investor just got bigger. Upfront Ventures closed June with the announcement of a $400-million investment fund that it plans to spend on dozens of start-ups in the next couple of years. It’s believed to be Los Angeles County’s largest-ever venture capital fund by raw number, though Upfront Ventures’ $390-million investment fund in 2000 comes out far on top when adjusted for inflation. Still, it beats the $280 million that Upfront Ventures picked up at the end of 2014. Mark Suster, managing partner at the firm, declined to provide specifics about the returns that prior funds have generated. “The new fundraising speaks for itself,” he said. “We not only raised $400 million, we did it in 2-1/2 months from start to finish. That speaks to our track record.” [ LA Times ] Silicon Valley doesn't need more apologies for sexism — it needs a planFinally, the ugly reality of sexual harassment in Silicon Valley is getting the extensive coverage it always warranted. That has happened because of courageous women like Susan Fowler, Niniane Wang, Susan Ho, Leiti Hsu, and so many others who have spoken out. Now industry leaders like Reid Hoffman have begun to highlight sexual harassment as an issue that the tech community must grapple with and solve. But we must take it a step further. [ Business Insider ] French VC firm Breega adds $113 million to pot for EU startupsFledgling France-based venture capital (VC) firm Breega Capital (“Breega”) announced that it has raised a new €100 million ($113 million) pot to invest in European startups. Founded out of Paris in 2013, Breega typically invests in seed- and series-A stage startups across Europe. This latest fund represents its second, following an inaugural €50 million ($57 million) fund back when it first launched that has so far been used to finance more than 25 startups, including FoodChéri, Travauxlib, Exotec, GoJob, and FretLink. Trucking Is About to be Disrupted as More Truckers Get a Common DeviceThe trucking industry is still very old-school — paper schedules on cork boards, if you listen to tech investor Reid Hoffman — but everybody needs trucks, which makes it a very attractive industry for technologists and investors. The thing that’s going to revolutionize trucking though, is something most people already have: an iPhone or Android or other smartphone. “The smartphone revolution is beginning to hit truckers,” Hoffman told Kara Swisher on the excellent Recode Decode podcast released on Monday. “They all have … a general-purpose computer that can help match and route and deal with things like taking pictures of incomplete loads and other things. You have this whole place where the experience can be transformed. It makes a very big difference in the world.” That’s why Hoffman invested in — insert “Uber but for” here — Convoy, a trucking start-up based in Seattle that aims to put trucking logistics onto the cloud to make the trucking business more efficient. KLEINER PERKINS GP, ERIC FENG ON HOW THE BEST FUNDS USE TECH AND DATA TO FIND COMPANIES, WHY ENTREPRENEURS START THE FIRE AND VCS ADD THE ROCKET FUEL & WHY CONSUMER IS HARDER THAN EVER TODAYEric Feng is a Partner @ Kleiner Perkins, one of the world’s leading venture capital firms with prior investments in the likes of Google, Amazon, Snapchat, Uber, Twitter and more. At Kleiner Eric focuses on consumer and incubation with his current being his co-founding role with Packagd, the startup building a family of apps offering a new mobile shopping experience. Packagd recently raised a $6m Series A led by Forerunner and GV. Prior to KPCB, Eric held the role of CTO at both Flipboard and Hulu. [ 20 VC ] VC Aileen Lee just offered some very specific advice to female founders looking for fundingIn May, at TechCrunch’s Disrupt event in New York, researchers from Harvard Business Review were in the audience, and they were taking notes. Using their findings, along with the help of a linguistic software program that scanned video transcriptions of Q&A sessions between on-stage venture capitalists and startup founders, they came to an interesting — and disturbing — conclusion. They discovered the investors (and 40 percent of them were women) tended to ask men questions about the potential for gains at their startups, while they asked women about the potential for losses. [ Tech Crunch ] An Open Letter to Chris Sacca, Dave McClure, Travis Kalanick, and All of Silicon ValleyThis is an open letter, after two weeks of reading about sexual harassment scandals. Dear Silicon Valley We know you're very sorry about creating a culture that for decades has demeaned and excluded both women and people of color. Thanks so much for your multiple apologies. The question is, are you satisfied with your own apologies, or do you want to change things? If you do, I have a few suggestions. It certainly has been a fascinating couple of weeks. It began with Travis Kalanick's departure as Uber CEO, in the wake of a blog post detailing the company's routine practice of protecting and concealing sexual harassment. [ Inc. ] Mark Pincus and Reid Hoffman are launching a new group to rethink the Democratic PartyMark Pincus and Reid Hoffman want to hack the Democratic Party. Not literally. Not the likes of what befell the team behind Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign, resulting in scores of private emails being published online — and countless news stories that helped seal her defeat. No, Pincus, the co-founder of Zynga, and Hoffman, the brains behind LinkedIn, want to force Democrats to rewire their philosophical core, from their agenda to the way they choose candidates in elections — the stuff of politics, they said, that had been out of reach for most voters long before Donald Trump became president. [ Recode ] Sex robots promise 'revolutionary' service but also risks, says studySex robots have the potential to provide a valuable service for people who are elderly, disabled or who find intercourse traumatic, but they also carry ethical risks, experts say. Sex robots that look like humans can already be bought or leased for parties in the US, and plans for a cafe staffed by “erotic cyborgs” in Paddington, London, have been mooted. [ The Guardian ] In Paris, They Do Start-Ups With StyleIn Silicon Valley, people famously work long hours. Do what it takes. Perfect that gadget or widget. Help your wealthy venture capital backer raise the money necessary to buy that sweet summer villa on Capri. But in recent years, work-life balance has become a cause célèbre among tech workers, who are questioning whether a shot at the brass ring is really worth it if you don’t get to see your children grow up. The recent exaltation of parenthood by star executives like Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg has amplified suspicions that you can work hard while living well. [ NY Times ] |