The holy grail for a Silicon Valley entrepreneur is getting funded by a venture capitalist.

Here’s how a ‘hot’ Silicon Valley startup’s funding process goes:

1. A bunch of Rich White Men raise several hundred million dollars from pension funds, foundations, super-wealthy families and university endowments through the old boys network of other White Men and hang out a shingle calling themselves Venture Capitalists (VC)
2. Flush with capital, the Rich White Men sit in plush digs on Sand Hills Road, Menlo Park (CA) surrounded by abstract expressionist artwork (abstract expressionism is a school of ‘art’ that makes no sense to anyone except its creator) on the wall waiting for entrepreneur supplicants to show up and plead for money
3. Somewhere in San Jose, an entrepreneur has a “Eureka’ moment and convinces himself he has a ‘disruptive’ idea (‘disruptive’ in plain English = screw other businesses, screw other employees, screw everyone outside the entrepreneur’s self, get others to do the bulk of the startup’s work a la Yelp, Twitter, Facebook, eBay, TripAdvisor)
4. Entrepreneur maxxes out credit card and cajoles friends and family for seed funding for his ‘disruptive’ startup
5. With seed money in hand, excited entrepreneur launches ‘disruptive’ startup in his bedroom and convinces 2.5 naive dolts to join him with a spiel of an ‘opportunity of a lifetime to get in on the ground-floor’ (Think, do you want to change the world or sell soda water for the rest of your life?)
6. ‘Disruptive’ startup sees ‘viral’ growth among itchy, restless Internet teens in USA, China, India and Brazil sniffing for a ‘new high’ Continue reading »