Who's Afraid of Venture Capital?

Last night I had a chance to attend a panel hosted by my alma mater, Stanford University. Chip Hazard, '89 from Flybridge Capital Partners in Boston highlighted the amazing cast of panelists assembled. 

Aside from fielding a few baseline questions from entrepreneurs in the making, Joe Medved from SoftBank Capital shared a quick bit of advice relevant for those looking to pursue careers in the venture capital space. 

He noted that he and folks like Matt Witheiler (also from Flybridge) managed to observe the densely concentrated networks present in a place like Boston (and undoubtedly present in The Valley). He remarked that this was an incentive for him to move to New York and begin to develop relationships with a network of entrepreneurs that he'd likely continue to see throughout his career in this area. 

Hopefully they're more room for network building in New York. Otherwise, I may be forced to repatriate to sunny Southern California!

I Smelled The Roses

Admittedly, there has been tons of exciting college football taking place to help ease me into 2013. Johnny Football destroyed his opponents while Louisville managed to slay Florida. But obviously, no other victory meant as much to me as Stanford's victory over Wisconsin in The Rose Bowl. 

Working on 3 hours of slack and lacking a warm coat, I got to attend the festivities which actually marked by first trip to a Cardinal bowl game. Although things were a bit ugly, Stanford's defense held strong and Jordan Williamson was able to redeem himself by hitting two tough field goals which would prove to be the difference at the end of the day. 

Although this year's recruiting class isn't shocking and aweing anyone, I'm certain that this program is for real and won't be going anywhere anytime soon.