A VC - Latest Comments in The Leap Of Faith

Re: The Leap Of Faith

tomc22 — Sun, 14 Jun 2009 14:04:25 -0000

I think all of "it" ultimately is built on a "leap of faith". It took a singular vision for an inventor or entreprenuer to leap in hopes of making something better. And, most of the time, it took teams to take subsequent "leaps" along the way.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

reece — Fri, 12 Jun 2009 13:12:29 -0000

I was scanning the comments here for something like this, which I agree with entirely. It's an "instinct" but it's cultivated by learned instances over time. If there was room, I'd post John Galt's final speech from Atlas Shrugged...

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:29:10 -0000

thanks. great post. i forwarded it to the team at zemanta.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

paramendra — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:19:09 -0000

If you feel like putting in a word for me somewhere today or tomorrow.
http://technbiz.blogspot.co...

Re: The Leap Of Faith

paramendra — Thu, 11 Jun 2009 14:18:03 -0000

Fred, now you owe me one. :-)
http://buzz.blogger.com/200...
Now you got the Google people paying attention.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

paramendra — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 20:19:57 -0000

Well, Fred, I did my part: http://technbiz.blogspot.co... As to when, your guess is probably better than mine. On the other hand, Zemanta could stick it out as a stand alone application and be on my platforms, why only Google's? Or it could get bought by Google and still be on many platforms. It is capable of generating revenue, but this company feels custom made to be eaten by a bigger fish. My two cents.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 19:47:05 -0000

When exactly will that happen? ;)

Re: The Leap Of Faith

paramendra — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:45:47 -0000

Zemanta's business model is that it is going to be bought by Google for Blogger/Gmail for a huge sum of money. That would be a fair exit strategy.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

paramendra — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 16:44:08 -0000

I am a huge fan of Zemanta. Good work.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 11:27:12 -0000

Great story

Re: The Leap Of Faith

ivanhoff — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 10:57:13 -0000

The difference between leaps of faith and gambling is called experience.

There was a small, 5'5 woman, named Jessica, who bet $1000 to her friends that she will make 10 out of 10 3 pointers in the local basketball court. The two friends had PhD in Statistics and they quickly calculated, that the probability of Jessica making 10 out of 10 was very slim. They figured out this could be easy money and accepted the challenge. 5 minutes later, they were shocked to see Jessica scoring 10 out of 10. They thought that this is one in a million event and cursed their luck. What they didn't know was that for the past 10 year, Jessica practiced her 3 points shooters every day for at least two hours. What seemed like a low probability event in the eyes of her friends, was actually a good investment with high expectancy for Jessica.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:56:07 -0000

its open to all who would like to join!

Re: The Leap Of Faith

Prokofy — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:51:53 -0000

"New Shul" -- what a great name! like "The New School" university in spirit.

Your essay reminds me of Hebrews:

"Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen." (Hebrews 11:1).

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:48:11 -0000

My religion are the things I love and venture capital is certainly one of them

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:32:15 -0000

Good point.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:32:13 -0000

Zemanta does recommend related posts to me while I am writing. That's a big piece of the value prop. I guess I left that out

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:23:10 -0000

I haven't thought much about disrupting religion but if we could, we might just end up with peace on earth

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:04:12 -0000

Indeed

Re: The Leap Of Faith

fredwilson — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 18:03:11 -0000

Old man??? I'm just getting started

Re: The Leap Of Faith

Donna Brewington White — Sat, 06 Jun 2009 04:30:07 -0000

This is actually quite moving. I don't know if you intended it to be. I was just thinking of writing to ask you to consider writing a blog post on what you think it takes to be a successful venture capitalist...and, voila, here is this eloquent summation. Maybe venture capital is your "religion." It certainly requires a lot of faith.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

ashish — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 15:07:22 -0000

Great one Fred, esp. the fact that this is coming from an investor makes the article more interesting.
Somewhere one starts trusting the team so deeply that it makes the entire process (of taking the plunge) easier..

Re: The Leap Of Faith

ravisohal — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 13:45:07 -0000

I think some (fresh) entrepreneurs may misinterpret this and carry it over into their startup - "if we just believe and go on guts it will happen." Steve Blank has a post about faith based entrepreneurship and fact based execution, well worth the read. For me it reads "jump with your eyes closed, but land with them wide open."

Here's the link: http://steveblank.com/2009/...

Re: The Leap Of Faith

Morgan Warstler — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 12:46:43 -0000

Zemanta's got to be psyched about Google Wave.

The other data I think they'd be smart to provide to bloggers is "common posts" - something that while you are typing is showing you other blogs that have touched the same subject. Maybe they could work a deal to repackage and VAR Buzz Logic at a retail level.

Could Disqus use Zemanta?

Re: The Leap Of Faith

Tom Krieglstein — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 11:06:32 -0000

I figured your response was somewhere in there. I just read Tribes by Seth Godin and he talks a lot about disrupting your own system for future growth and uses Religion as an example as the system of Spirituality that needs a good disruption.

I'd love for you, when you have free time ;-), to take the same disruption principles you are applying to School as the system of Education and try it out on Religion as the system for Spirituality.

Re: The Leap Of Faith

Jose Vargas — Fri, 05 Jun 2009 10:25:43 -0000

Hello Fred, I am going to be in Croatia in 2 weeks with my wife, she is from there. We are driving to Venice and passing thru Ljubliana. Please let me know if you want me to say hello to the Zemanta guys. Also, if you guys are looking to raise a bit more let me know. regards.