harveyesq

A mid take on AI and venture fund law.

Key Takeaways: Jargon is formal slang. Jargon uses technical terms but its primary purpose is to show status. The more jargon someone uses, the lower their status and credibility.

How can you tell if a crypto token is a security? Easy—if you're asking the SEC—Everything is a Security. Link to article on legal analysis of how securities laws work.

Fred Wilson agrees.

In his mind you should be able to incorporate, draft and sign series seed documents (no negotiation) for $5K. Although that was said several years ago the same ideal should hold true today in 2020. https://avc.com/2011/03/a-challenge-to-startup-lawyers/

Grinds my gears too! If it were up to me, I would have called the deal off.

Actually, that's close to what it was saying:

"The American Rule" is a reference to a norm in law that your opponent pays for their own legal fees, and you pay for yours. See https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_rule_(attorney%27s_...

Compare this internationally:

• The English rule is used, under which the losing party pays the prevailing party's attorneys' fees.

So the American rule is that each party bear their own costs of litigation.

Contracts allow parties to fee shift. Although the article equates fee splitting as the American rule, there's technically no such rule for transactions, but it does represent the general American sentiment on the subject, which is that parties should bear their own costs. Requiring the weaker party in a transaction to shoulder the financial load of a dominant party may be a common capitalistic practice, but it's not an American ideal.

Yeah the $450 an hour is a national number for all attorneys with over 10 years of experience, as reported by a website called Priori Legal (www.priorilegal.com).

Also if you're not hiring a lawyer strictly because he or she is not charging over $450 an hour, I think you're doing it wrong. All due respect.

No respect. Love the contrarian takedown in 2005, but were it not for this gem of a story below, I would have said the same thing about this guy and has writing. It's pretty good. Not PG good. But good enough.

https://idlewords.com/2004/05/attacked_by_thugs.htm

I don't think Paul was ever much of a fan of VCs, particularly early on. See http://www.paulgraham.com/venturecapital.html

GP = General partner;

LP = Limited partner

GPs are the VCs, the ones wearing Patagonia puffer jackets. LPs are the actual investors, including pensions, endowments, sovereign wealth funds, high net worth individuals, and on occasion, larger institutionals like hedge funds and publicly traded corporations.

Bingo

Yes but the average partner per fund for microVC (under $100M) is less than 2 people (1.94 is the average). So unless you're working for a large VC platform with several funds and plenty of room on the team's cap table, you're waiting patiently on the sidelines of a very long game.

The TL;DR here is that it's possible to transition into a VC role as a former CTO but it's not a common pathway.

Many VCs have followed a standard pathway from Harvard/Stanford/Whartonn MBA into a fund (because it checks the boxes of LP due diligence) , but if you are looking to shortcut that process, then you have to consider how other VCs got their start.

The great debate in VC is whether Operator VCs (those who have founded or operated a business) are better suited to VC than Investor VCs (those who haven't founded or operated a business, like most Wall Street types)?

The data indicates there is no clearcut answer. You can read the CB Insights analysis here: https://www.cbinsights.com/research/founders-best-venture-ca...

Also, Fred Wilson (@AVC) wrote an article that indicated investor VCs make the best kind of VC more often (which of course can be analyzed otherwise): https://avc.com/2017/05/investor-vcs-and-operator-vcs/

The important things to note are that 1) VC is not monolithic and 2) VC is multi disciplinary.

The best VC fund managers need to be great at raising capital, have excellent deal flow/selection, know how to communicate, negotiate and close deals, be valuable board members, manage a fund portfolio and exit portfolio companies to return capital to the fund's LPs.

Finally, here are the top three reasons why Fred Wilson thinks many of the best VCs, at least of his generation, were not entrepreneurs and operators before becoming VCs: 1. Manage People. Avoiding the temptation to operate and instead managing well from a distance. 2. Strategic Mindset. Understanding where value is going to be in an emerging market, how to get to the best strategically positioned companies first, and how to guide those companies toward a strategy that wins the market. 3. Being a portfolio team player by wearing many hats and ultimately doing whatever it takes to help solve the startup founder's biggest problems.

Also see,

“Investor vs. Operator VC” by Rory Stirling https://link.medium.com/nIPkvG31z1

Because it takes 10 or more years for one fund to run its course. If the associate stays with the VC firm, it's a long uphill road rising to the top. The fastest shortcut is to jump over to another firm that needs that associate's skillsets, and might even be open to issuing a profit's interest (split off of carry).