Are you better at identifying technology trends or picking the winners among those trends?
In reality, what happens is there's some large number of opportunities that come by every year. Some are unsolicited, others are because of relationships that you have… Each of us has a different way of looking at these things. I probably have a more technical approach to looking at them than most.
In terms of your strengths, are you better at seeing something in terms of when it might start to happen, or are you better at recognizing a technology because it holds broader promise?
It's a balance. But that's why we have a team approach at KPCB. Sometimes, something may come to me, and I may be lukewarm on it. But I can send an email off to a couple of the partners.
One really important thing is to be very organised and manage your time well, because it's really about relationships between people and companies, and helping people put things together. Fundamentally, it's about getting the teams to work well and building them. That's the hard part, but that's key.
At Sun, what was the most frequent way in which you come across companies that you might want to invest in?
Most of them came from just email referrals from friends.
Looking back a few years, have you drawn any lessons? Did you think VCs were putting money in places that didn't make any sense?
Yeah, I thought it was overheated. I think sobriety has returned, and it's a good thing. The problem is when there's money being thrown around, and high valuations are paid, and the good ideas are competing with really bad ideas, and things are over-invested, nobody can make any money. That's not a healthy situation. It's healthy to eat a normal amount per day, but having twice as much doesn't make you healthier.
Do you think people are in danger of forgetting that history?
I'm not really worried about it. I mean, if it goes crazy, then you have to adjust your behaviour. But at the moment, there seem to be an enormous number of interesting ventures to look at, and a lot of great and new companies are going to come out of this next class.
