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Why the NYC startup scene needs Sean Parker

This is going to be BIG.

He spotted Facebook in 2004 and Spotify in 2009. or would he have been convinced to take a financing round? Companies going for the long ball aren't discovered--they're juiced up to go for the homerun, with financing. Parker made a huge dent in the web as co-founder of Napster, then built Plaxo up to 20 million users.

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How the New York City innovation community can still lose (and what you can do about it)

This is going to be BIG.

As a Brooklyn native who has never lived outside the five boroughs—and someone who left Big Finance—I feel a special kind of pride over what’s gone on here in the last six+ years. There isn’t a single person in the NYC that is more excited than I am about how far we’ve come.

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This Week in VC – Scott Painter, CEO of Zag & TrueCar

Both Sides of the Table

He’s personally led more than 50 financing rounds. Based in Palo Alto and founded in 2004 by PayPal alumni. Offers two products: Palantir Government and Palantir Finance. But the most interesting is that all of his stories involved entrepreneurship. It’s part of what makes him so likable. Total raised: $22mm.

VC 248
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Playing the Long Game in Venture Capital

Both Sides of the Table

This “overnight success” was first financed in 2004. And FWIW, the final of my first four investments, all from this same fund, was, GumGum who recently announced it closed $75 million in financing led by Goldman Sachs. This is true in consumer but it’s also true in enterprise software. The virtue of going long.

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Technology Trends: 10 Areas of Innovation to Watch for 2012

This is going to be BIG.

2004 gave us widespread blogging and Meetups, and 2008 showed how the web could be a community organizing and fundraising tool. (PS.there are various companies in this article I have or have had business involvements with. Reader beware.). Open Government. Election years tend to be good for technology diffusion. What's the business model?

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This Week in VC with @VCMike Hirshland of Polaris Ventures

Both Sides of the Table

This lasted from about 2001-2004. Venture Financings we Discussed. When he entered the industry he caught the tail end of the dot com bubble and then was immediately thrust into a 3-year period of “triage&# where VC’s had to deal with problems in portfolio companies. I shall be looking to replicate this in Los Angeles.

VC 230
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The Stock Dive: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Market

This is going to be BIG.

Even after the worst period for VC in history—VC funds were back to market in 2004, no more than four years after the crash, right in line with the historical pace to get back at the game of investing. It was super hard to get any kind of financing before, and it will remain so. The incentive is too strong. You should be all good.

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