« The Twitter Lesson: No Business Plans Please | Main | Why is Tech Being So Damn Well-Behaved? »
Latest Stories
- Reason # 7,732 Why Yahoo Management is Delusional
- First Faux Apple 3G iPhone Teardown
- New York as (Financial) Tech Startup Hub
- Companies Mutate or Die
- Greenspan's Global Tour
July 26, 2007
VCs Hugging Porn Stars? Not Really
My friend Matt over at the NY Times has a piece about VCs getting cosy with the porn business. Appropriately enough, it's a tease right up there with the industry he's writing about.Sure, there are some large, growing, and highly profitable (sometimes technology-driven) porn companies out there. And sure, more than a few VCs have played footsie with these firms now and then. But until the venture business is funded by groups other than pension funds, trusts, and endowments (ahem), the likelihood of mainstream VCs ever getting beyond flirtations is vanishingly small.
The unspoken rule remains the same: You can fund the people that facilitate adult entertainment -- bandwidth, payment, etc. -- but that's as far as it goes.
Sphere It
| 
Digg it
| 
Bookmark it
| 
Stumble it
It's amazing that America has so many sexual cultural hangups that even venture capitalists would turn aside highly profitable investment opportunities because they involve adult entertainment.
I've got a relative who runs convenience stores. He's as devoutly Christian as can be (alarmingly so sometimes!), but when it comes to his stores, he's got the Playboys and the Coors Light displays maximized to jack up his stores' profitability, because that stuff is PROFITABLE. His view is obvious and logical: hey, the people that buy that stuff will probably burn, but their money keeps my family fed and clothed. As devout as he is, he is somehow able to compartmentalize the morals and the profit motive, which I would think if ANYONE could, a VC could!
"The unspoken rule ..."
Fascinating. You say there's some sort of group social effect that overrides the obvious profit potential, right? Nobody "mainstream" defects? How in the world is this enforced?
I mean, from an outsider's perspective, that's pretty surprising. If there's profits to be made - and sex sells - how is this squared with the imperative to maximum return?