How many of the unicorn companies are really prosaic businesses - like limousine services or renting rooms in your house? The original VC firms from the '70's made their money and established the reputation of their respective brands by leveraging big cleverness with small capital, not small cleverness with big capital, and that's what's going on with these unicorns. That has never worked and it won't work this time. It doesn't produce venture quality returns, and it never will.
Kevin KinsellaEveryone who is inside of an expanding bubble can't imagine another world where the bubble collapses on them. It's unimaginable because they haven't lived through it.
Kevin KinsellaFor venture capital, one of the original principles is people you want to invest in are people who've done it before with someone else's money. Not people who've just came out of business school.
Kevin KinsellaWe live in a global market and money's fungible and hedge fund private equity is looking for momentum plays, and there ain't no momentum plays in bonds, right? When the interest rates were spiking up or down, well they never really spike down they do spike up though. Something's got to happen, there's got to be motion, the dice has to be rolling on the board, and if it's not then they're not going to play because they're not going to get the adrenaline rush from looking at... you know, money markets fund interest rates or bond interests or whatever. It's got to be sexy.
Kevin KinsellaI think mobile web enabled services can be great business but A): it doesn't apply to everything, I think the markets will ultimately get a bit fragmented when the crunch stars to happen. And the other thing is, B): it doesn't necessarily work with everything.
Kevin KinsellaHow many of the unicorn companies are really prosaic businesses - like limousine services or renting rooms in your house? The original VC firms from the '70's made their money and established the reputation of their respective brands by leveraging big cleverness with small capital, not small cleverness with big capital, and that's what's going on with these unicorns. That has never worked and it won't work this time. It doesn't produce venture quality returns, and it never will.
Kevin Kinsella