Category Archives: venture capital

Cash is a fact, profit is an opinion

February 7, 2011 – 12:33 pm

TweetApologies in advance: If you’re fluent in the language of accounting, please skip to the bonus Verizon iPhone feature at the end. What I’m about to describe will strike you as oversimplified and could bruise your professional sensitivities. Companies sometimes (often?) manipulate their numbers. Today, we’ll look at a few examples of accounting sophistry and [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (11)

Mobile Payments

January 24, 2010 – 6:21 pm

TweetLast week’s note on Apple licensing generated a good flow of comments, all appreciated. I’ll respond, but not before we get Apple earnings and the putative Jesus Tablet out of the way. I’ll approach today’s topic, mobile payments, using an Apple Store moment. Some cables keep disappearing. In particular, the ones that connect MacBooks of [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Also posted in mobile internet | Comments (4)

Venture Capital Business Model

December 20, 2009 – 8:17 pm

Tweetby Jean-Louis Gassée As promised last week, let’s dig into a venture fund’s key numbers. Limited Partners, LP, institutions or individuals put money into the fund. We, the General Partners, GP, make and manage the investments and we split the profits with the LP as the sole compensation for our services. Over time, the split [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (9)

The Other French Paradox (2) – Jobs

December 13, 2009 – 4:11 pm

TweetTwo weeks ago, I discussed what I called The Other French Paradox, that is how French taxpayers and French companies are at a (curable) disadvantage in Silicon Valley. Last week, I “shared” (we’re in California) my own plans to deal with the twin problems: a venture fund whose profits reverse the flow of money back [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Tagged | Comments (5)

Resolving The French Other Paradox

December 7, 2009 – 9:00 am

TweetLast week, we looked at the two components of the “other” French Paradox. First, the Valley aura helps a tiny Palo Alto start-up sell its technology in France. But it doesn’t work the other way around: a Lyons high-tech company will get a polite reception but no orders from the likes of HP, Google or [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Tagged | Comments (8)

The Other French Paradox

November 29, 2009 – 12:56 pm

Tweetby Jean-Louis Gassée Foie gras, crême fraîche, butter, red wine — and lots of it! All these excesses leading to a higher life expectancy, to say nothing of the joys of sinning. That’s the legendary now official French Paradox. Scientists strain to explain the phenomenon: ‘It’s the phenolic compounds in the red wine’, they say. [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (11)

Technology: It’s Over…

September 20, 2009 – 11:07 am

TweetIn an “Entrepreneurial Thought Leader” lecture given at Stanford University earlier this year, Tom Siebel argues that all of the great technological advances and development of great companies are behind us – and the growth rate for the tech sector is just on par with the rate of current economic growth. The previous sentence introduces [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Also posted in hardware | Comments (4)

The VC Money Pump: NAV

May 31, 2009 – 1:15 pm

TweetThe acronym stands for Net Asset Values. Be forewarned: this is the more boring installment in the VC Money Pump series of columns (see part 1 and part 2 ). Worse than spreadsheets and compound interest calculations, today’s topic forces us to deal with FASB (Federal Accounting Standard Board) regulations. Expensive futility as far as [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (2)

Inside a Venture Capital fund: Reserves

May 24, 2009 – 9:43 am

TweetLast week, with Excel’s help, we looked at the “simple” computation of a VC fund’s rate of return. This week: Reserves, a most important sets of numbers. As a rule, for every dollar initially invested in a company, we immediately set aside an additional $2 or even $3 as a reserve for future rounds, future [...]

Edited by Jean-Louis Gassée | Comments (3)

The Venture Capital Money Pump

May 17, 2009 – 6:11 pm

TweetThis week, I intend to take you through the pipes of a VC fund’s “money pump”. It starts with dollars coming in from our investors, our Limited Partners, LP, to be invested in entrepreneurs’ big ideas. Later, sometimes much later, money comes back to be shared between the LP and us, the General Partners, the [...]

Edited by Frédéric Filloux | Comments (10)