Interesting story today in theTimes on the age-old conflict between entrepreneurs and vulture capitalists. The piece makes much of entrepreneurs who are self-financing or going to independent angel investors to get around traditional venture capitalists. This has been going on for a long time. But venture capitalists bring asssets that go way beyond money and can be critical to building thriving high-tech enterprises–just ask Apple, or google, or virtually any of the successful enterprises that define the landscape of American high-tech. My work with Martin Kenney on the subject leads me to believe that insitutional venture capital, along with perhaps America’s system of research universities and openness to foreign talent, is a key cornerstone of US economic performance.
