Criticism
In a 2005 blog posting, Bill Burnham criticized the "deal flow-centric view of venture world premised on a passive approach to venture investing that essentially subscribes to a 'build it and they will come' theory of venture investing". Burnham cites statistics showing that in the 1980s, high rates of deal flow were easy to achieve because of the relatively high numbers of entrepreneurs and low numbers of venture capitalists. Now, he argues, venture capitalists have increased in numbers, such that, except for the very top firms, most VCs cannot rely on passive deal flow to sustain operations. Burnham advocates what he calls "Thesis Driven Investing", whereby a VC firm decides upon one or more investment theses, then "they go and out and 'turn over rocks' actively looking for deals that fit their investment thesis in a particular space."
Read more about this topic: Deal Flow
Famous quotes containing the word criticism:
“The aim of all commentary on art now should be to make works of art—and, by analogy, our own experience—more, rather than less, real to us. The function of criticism should be to show how it is what it is, even that it is what it is, rather than to show what it means.”
—Susan Sontag (b. 1933)
“...I wasn’t at all prepared for the avalanche of criticism that overwhelmed me. You would have thought I had murdered someone, and perhaps I had, but only to give her successor a chance to live. It was a very sad business indeed to be made to feel that my success depended solely, or at least in large part, on a head of hair.”
—Mary Pickford (1893–1979)
“When you overpay small people you frighten them. They know that their merits or activities entitle them to no such sums as they are receiving. As a result their boss soars out of economic into magic significance. He becomes a source of blessings rather than wages. Criticism is sacrilege, doubt is heresy.”
—Ben Hecht (1893–1964)