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February 13, 2007

Why VCs are Evil, or Not. Maybe.

Mike Arrington has up a tough post on the troubles at VC-backed Filmloop. It alleges that the company's minority VC backers forced a sale on the cash-burning company, despite it having millions on the balance sheet. Evil, evil, evil. Right?

Well, read two comments to the post. One is from a partner at the reputedly evil VC, and another is from David Cowan at Bessemer. Agree or disagree, it's good insight into VC portfolio dynamics, as well as the financial mechanics of company control.

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Comments

I think the whole VC-entrepreneur dynamic reminds us what a wonderful phenomenon dispersed shareholding structures of public companies are!

Assuming their traffic figures from Alexa are correct and reflect the public's opinion, cut-and-run might well have been the wisest choice.

Yes, I have been watching Alexa numbers for years know the vulnerabilities and errors but find them reliable in a coarse way based on my own comparisons to actual figures.

Many dreams have been ruthlessly smashed for the sake of a lot less than 3M, the untold portion of this story vastly outweighs the told.

Ooops, I'd better get back to my life.

aha. right. the damn thing bloats out its payroll, burns through 10 mill, doesn't make a cent, and people have the nerve to call filmloop a "viable startup"

it was a sick puppy and it needed to get put down