Venture Capitalists With Powerful Blogs May Run Afoul of the SEC
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That said, it is probably good policy not to write about any companies that you have an active stake in, especially while transactions are in progress.
The people involved in public companies all have been 'read their rights' on this stuff and know full well the consequences of breaking the rules.
I have heard investors say, "I'm not in deal ABC, but I could have been / wish I was, because now those guys are killing it." Is that fraud? While that type of talk can excite people to act, if the investor isn't involved...idk. Oftentimes, the common public perception a company is 'killing it' is neither news (to the general tech public), nor is it always true (lots of companies appear to be killing it, but are running out of cash.).
Another scenario is when a VC talks publicly about an investment they are in, in conjunction with details about how the company is performing. I can't recall ever hearing this type of talk, though I'm sure it does exist. In these cases, I'd suspect, as long as the company isn't about to go public, fraud would still be questionable. If this type of information was used to persuade other institutional investors, who conduct their own diligence, I'm not sure the statements hold much meaning. With private investments, which are not usually liquid, and investors are selected...it's akin to Goldman making the argument that their clients are professional investors and therefore responsible to make their own investment decisions. However, with the introduction of Second Market, this might not be the case. In the event that private stock acts like public stock, forward looking statements (either positive or negative) that move the market could have a fraudulent effect.
The whole situation is unclear, especially considering the rare IPO and Second Market effect, VCs can really only defraud professional investors / acquirers. In those cases, I'm not sure their words have much of an affect. However, VCs could potential make statements and sell stock on 2nd market.
It'll be interesting to see how it all works out and whether or not Second Market will be able to trade private company stock in the future.
That applies to any investor or insider, regardless of where they speak publicly. So, it applies to Fred Wilson, Mike Arrington, and any other investor.
Blogs like TechCrunch and GigaOm are more journalistic in nature - their goals and the public's perception of them is as a news source. There are certain responsibilities and standards that need to be upheld when you are a source of news that don't apply to personal blogs.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Regulation_Fair_Disclosure
For privately held companies there is no equivalent afaik.
Especially critical is the time of transition from a privately held company to a public one (IPO). And that's good stuff. The basic idea is that everybody has access to all the information at the same time.
The big issue would be if a blog or some other communication wrote 'you should buy this stock' knowing it is a lemon and unloading by someone with a hand in the creation of the blog.
That's why it is good practice to fully disclose that you have a position in the companies you write about, because if you do not it may be that afterwards, long after you thought it mattered you could still be hit with a violation depending on what he stock did after you published.
When an investor or insider is engaged in an omission which proves to be a deception, and the result of that was a financial loss to another investor, a case for fraud can be made.
As stated, at least, that seems like it would also apply to founders' blogs, or even founders' posts on HN.
I wonder if Fred Wilson and Marc Andreessen have buyer's remorse today. These SEC appointees didn't fall from the sky, they came from this administration.
http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2008/11/barack-hussein.html
A world class management team. I remember the first debate
I ever watched Obama participate in. He was asked whether
he was a "strong operatating executive." He replied that
he was not "the COO", that he was more like "the CEO". And
then he went on to talk about surrounding yourself with
the best people you can find and then letting them do
their job. He did that with his campaign which was a
masterful thing to watch, he did that with his VP pick (in
stark contrast to the Palin fiasco), and I expect he'll
build a killer cabinet and a killer administration (look
for some picks from across the aisle).
Marc Andreessen: We asked him directly, how concerned should we be that you
haven’t had meaningful experience as an executive — as a
manager and leader of people?
He said, watch how I run my campaign — you’ll see my
leadership skills in action.
...
He’s got my vote.And of course Obama doesn't know anything about the market and certainly does not believe in the free market to do anything. His latest jobs program should make that painfully obvious to anyone paying attention. The notion of the technocrat appeals to people who are smart and like solving problems. They feel like any problem can be solved with a good enough team and a smart leader (as an aside why does anyone believe Obama to be anything but an average intellect). That is as FA Hayek put it a fatal conceit but it's easy to see why people fall into it. I said the same thing about Mark Cuban's comical jobs program: top down thinking is toxic to your brain.