Name and address withheld to protect me, the not so innocent

Sometime in the last undefined period, in some unnamed city, a company that I have an interest in met with an ‘investor’. I went along as a fly on the wall.

(the shiftiness of all this is to prevent any accusations being lodged against me).

This ‘investor’ proudly wore the badge of a ‘venture capitalist’.

For the scientists amongst you the only analogy I can draw is this:

Imagine someone that has not completed a PhD, nor a research year in their undergraduate degree, not even an undergraduate degree, and in fact they hadn’t completed high school … easy to imagine I am guessing?

Now what would your response be if that person applied for a position as a post-doc?

Well, that is about the equivalent of these people calling themselves venture capitalists.

A general partner in a venture capital fund should have at least 10 years venture capital apprenticeship as both an associate and a principal in a partnership, together with a little ad hoc scholarship before wearing the label of a fully fledged venture capital. Prior experience would normally entail start-up entrepreneurship and/or a really good business/finance degree and MBA, plus a little corporate experience.

Anyway the meeting was so odd that is was actually quite funny. It certainly added to my collection of professional yarns.

And in case anyone thinks that taking money off such people would be like stealing candy off a baby, well that is true.

But dumb money always leads to dumb outcomes.

If you took funds off these guys you would then have them as shareholders and directors, and there will always be that critical moment when you are raising funds, selling the company or doing a big deal that these fuckers will screw you up completely through sheer ignorance, incompetence or fear.

Never fails.