Mercury News: Top VC Doerr apologizes for helping fuel dot-com frenzy. By billing wealth over innovation, Doerr says, his oft-repeated quote helped fuel a dot-com frenzy that focused more on a “mercenary” drive to make quick fortunes off Internet start-ups than on incubating businesses with revolutionary technology.
Better late than never, I suppose.But the culture of greed that arose here in the late 1990s stems in large part from the excesses of people like Doerr. Expressions of regret have an extremely hollow sound at this point.
I distinctly remember a conference panel almost exactly two years ago. Four of the top VCs — Doerr wasn’t among them — told a high-level tech audience that we were in an economic bubble that was going to burst one of these days.
They also said that almost all of the companies funded in the prior year (this is 1999, remember) were absolute garbage. Except for their own portfolio companies, of course.
It turned out that most of the companies they’d funded that year were junk, too. But a lot of investors lost money, big-time.
Don’t feel an ounce of sympathy for the investors in venture funds. These things are supposed to be risky.
My continuing worry is that the bubble will have cost the economy something more important — the trust of the average small investor. Many of these people were cheated, even if they willingly went to the slaughter. That remains the real scandal.
John Doerr helped fuel the excess. He’s right to apologize.
When will we hear from Mary Meeker or Henry Blodget?