Sean Parker Shares Concern over 'Rapid Fire Investing' in Silicon Valley

KnowNOW!

Global Economic Watch

Syndication

Recent Posts

Tags

Archives

Sean Parker helped lead Napster and Facebook into the world. So he is a big believer in supporting new ventures.  Indeed, as managing partner of VC firm Founders Fund, he continues to encourage and support entrepreneurs in the digital and tech sectors.  But he is concerned that there may be a little too much encouragement going on.  Parker sat down for an interview with CNet's Paul Sloan while attending Techonomy 2011.  And he shared his concerns for Silicon Valley, where he says a lot of investors are exhibiting behavior that is not sustainable in the current economic climate:

There was a huge inefficiency in the market six or eight years ago, where there wasn't enough early stage capital. It was that opportunity that allowed Founders Fund, my venture fund, to enter the market to fill that void because angels had become very skittish and started to believe they could never get their money out.

Now we've seen this explosion in angel investing. There are lots of angels coming out of Google and Facebook investing very rapidly and wanting to be players. I think that's some of the motivation--wanting to be players, to stay close to the game and wanting to have a seat at the table.

And they're making tons of investments often in companies that aren't fully baked--either the team isn't fully baked or the product isn't fully baked or there's no conceivable revenue model.

Read the full interview here.


Posted 11-18-2011 8:40 AM by Graham Griffith
You must login to your account to comment. If you do not have an account, please register to enjoy the full benefits of the site!