Slashdot Mirror
The Venture Cafe
Oh, no, I thought. Not another one of these rags-to-riches, I've-got-mine and-so-now-I'm-going-to-rub-your-face-in-it type books.
Thanks, but I've had enough. And then I took a moment to actually read this thing.
Turns out that this Teresa Esser isn't even an entrepreneur -- she's the wife of an entrepreneur. So what business does she have trying to tell me how to start a company?
Esser watched her husband start an Ethernet telephone firm that was eventually sold to 3Com for $90 million. After the company was sold, she spent three years interviewing 150 entrepreneurs, venture capitalists, corporate lawyers and high-tech headhunters about how a person can start their own high-tech company.
She interviewed members of the MIT blackjack team, asking them what it was like to gamble with other people's money. That's what the high-tech entrepreneurs were doing, you know, when they were financing their businesses with venture capital.
A lot of these new companies wound up going out of business. But some of them did not. Some of the new companies ACTUALLY SUCCEEDED at creating wealth for their investors -- including their venture capitalists, which more often than not happen to be pension funds.
So, when these high-tech entrepreneurs succeed at solving a problem and creating a solution and getting the product to market, and achieving a liquidity event, they make money for their investors.
There are a lot of business authors who spend half of the book thanking their wives for putting up with their obnoxious behavior and the other half bragging about how great they are.
Teresa Esser doesn't brag, really. I have to say, I admired how candid Esser was when she was talking about serious problems, like the time her husband got burned out and had to leave his company.
This was obviously a very painful experience, but she lays it all on the line. Esser didn't have to go back and dredge up those repressed memories about what it was like when her husband was on the verge of losing control of the technical direction his company was taking, and freaked out and asked Esser to turn off the electricity so that they would have to prematurely end an annoying board meeting.
She didn't have to fly to White Plains, New York and convince the God of high-tech headhunting, Chuck Ramsey, to spill the beans on how exactly you convince an top-ranked executive to leave his job and join a high-tech startup.
But she did.She could have spent the past three years lying on the beach in the Bahamas, drinking pina coladas and putting on sunscreen. Instead, she schlepped around Boston's financial district, asking jaded venture capitalists how an unknown entrepreneur could increase her chances of obtaining venture capital financing.
You know, most of these dot-com brag books make me sick. But I have to say, this one made me laugh.
I liked the story about the rat. These two kids started a company out of a disgusting apartment in Philadelphia and they tried to have a formal business meeting with a director of new business development from a Wall Street financial firm, but it was hard because they had these twelve-inch rats.
When the director of new business development came to visit, they didn't even have any clean cups to serve him tap water in. That story was funny. They gave the director of new business development a dirty dinosaur cup that they had gotten free from Burger King. And then he left. And the guys tried to figure out what had gone wrong with the meeting.
I mean, okay, okay. It's hard to start a new company. But with a book like this, at least you know that you're not the only one going through hard times.
To go through your own hard times, you can from The Venture Cafe from bn.com Also, check out The Venture Cafe web site. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to submit yours, read the book review guidelines, then hit the submission page.
fp... rowtow.com is the shit, son!
If the review bores me close to death, what should I expect of the actual book?
"If there is one thing I can't stand, it's watching a bunch of rich, fat, overpaid, overhyped dot-con executives blathering on and on..."
:(
Are you saying you hate CowboyNeal?
you couldnt have posted the story about some artist getting a CD to be #1 while the CD was on the internet being downloaded by "pirates" i'm sure someone's submitted it in by now
yes!!!
Diane Wilson speaks from her soapbox: As someone in another newsgroup said, it's troll season. For what it's worth...... We have two people here (at the moment, anyway) who have certain basic troll characteristics: They are unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their words or behavior. They are unable or unwilling to consider the possibility that they have brought a great deal of dislike upon themselves. I don't know for certain, but my feeling is that each of them is filled with self-hate, and is unable to face that issue. OK. I've dealt with self-haters before, and this is what you can expect: The only thing they can do with their venom is to flush it out on other people. As a result, everything they say about you is a reflection of their feelings about themselves. Because of their self-hate, there is nothing that you can say that is as bad as what they see in themselves. You can't hurt them, no matter how hard you try. The only thing that relieves their self-hate is to see other people in pain. If you let them get to you, that only encourages them. That's why they're here in the first place. The point is that flaming them hurts you more than it hurts them. What makes it worse--been here, seen this before, too--is that these trolls are insiders. Yes, they hurt, they're depressed, they are at least as far down as any of us. What that means is that they know all the right buttons to push to make us angry. They have no conscience that prevents them from pushing those buttons. That is the difference between them and us. They have turned abusive. Yes, that does make a difference. I've encountered some recovering abusers on the net, and I learned a few things from that experience. The one thing that sustains an abuser is denial; an abuser cannot allow hirself to be open to the slightest possibility that sie is harming another human being. They blame anyone and anything else in sight, but virtually all of that blame is directed at the victim, in one way or another. Abusers REFUSE to take responsibility for their behavior. In dealing with an abuser, particularly from a treatment perspective, the first and most important step is to break that denial. It is not only breaking the denial about hurting other people. It is essential to break the denial that they are not responsible for their behavior. They must learn that they have to take responsibility for everything that they do, and it is a hard lesson to teach. Until an abuser's denial is broken, it is dangerous to give them any sympathy. Sympathy gives them a way out, a way to avoid taking responsibility. Someone else made them the way they are; they're not responsible. This is utter garbage, and to give them this opening is truly a disservice. So. They are here to feed on our pain. We don't have to give them that satisfaction. They stay only as long as we feed them well. If we want them to go, all we have to do is to stop feeding them. The solution for trolls is in two parts. First, recognize and understand that they are here to hurt us. They way that they hurt us is to beat on us with their own rage. Recognize that everything they say about us is a reflection of their own self-hate. Even when they hit our triggers, it is their rage, their self-hatred that they are giving us. We don't have to let ourselves be hurt by the fact that they hate themselves. We don't have to accept that. We can let them drown in their self-hate, simply by ignoring them. And that is the second part. If you want a troll to go away, ignore her. When no one responds to them, they are left with their own venom. That is the last thing that a troll wants to have to deal with. Let us build an ASD zoo. Let us build cages, and put the appropriate names on those cages. Then let us put a sign in front of those cages: DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS. Then, most importantly, let us not feed the animals. Killfile or ignore them, but do not respond to them, and do not accept their pain as your own.
Diane Wilson speaks from her soapbox:
As someone in another newsgroup said, it's troll season.
For what it's worth......
We have two people here (at the moment, anyway) who have certain basic troll characteristics:
They are unable or unwilling to take responsibility for their words or behavior.
They are unable or unwilling to consider the possibility that they have brought a great deal of dislike upon themselves.
I don't know for certain, but my feeling is that each of them is filled with self-hate, and is unable to face that issue.
OK.
I've dealt with self-haters before, and this is what you can expect:
The only thing they can do with their venom is to flush it out on other people. As a result, everything they say about you is a reflection of their feelings about themselves.
Because of their self-hate, there is nothing that you can say that is as bad as what they see in themselves. You can't hurt them, no matter how hard you try.
The only thing that relieves their self-hate is to see other people in pain. If you let them get to you, that only encourages them. That's why they're here in the first place.
The point is that flaming them hurts you more than it hurts them.
What makes it worse--been here, seen this before, too--is that these trolls are insiders. Yes, they hurt, they're depressed, they are at least as far down as any of us. What that means is that they know all the right buttons to push to make us angry. They have no conscience that prevents them from pushing those buttons.
That is the difference between them and us. They have turned abusive. Yes, that does make a difference. I've encountered some recovering abusers on the net, and I learned a few things from that experience. The one thing that sustains an abuser is denial; an abuser cannot allow hirself to be open to the slightest possibility that sie is harming another human being. They blame anyone and anything else in sight, but virtually all of that blame is directed at the victim, in one way or another. Abusers REFUSE to take responsibility for their behavior.
In dealing with an abuser, particularly from a treatment perspective, the first and most important step is to break that denial. It is not only breaking the denial about hurting other people. It is essential to break the denial that they are not responsible for their behavior. They must learn that they have to take responsibility for everything that they do, and it is a hard lesson to teach.
Until an abuser's denial is broken, it is dangerous to give them any sympathy. Sympathy gives them a way out, a way to avoid taking responsibility. Someone else made them the way they are; they're not responsible. This is utter garbage, and to give them this opening is truly a disservice.
So.
They are here to feed on our pain. We don't have to give them that satisfaction.
They stay only as long as we feed them well. If we want them to go, all we have to do is to stop feeding them.
The solution for trolls is in two parts. First, recognize and understand that they are here to hurt us. They way that they hurt us is to beat on us with their own rage. Recognize that everything they say about us is a reflection of their own self-hate. Even when they hit our triggers, it is their rage, their self-hatred that they are giving us. We don't have to let ourselves be hurt by the fact that they hate themselves. We don't have to accept that. We can let them drown in their self-hate, simply by ignoring them.
And that is the second part. If you want a troll to go away, ignore hir. When no one responds to them, they are left with their own venom. That is the last thing that a troll wants to have to deal with.
Let us build an ASD zoo. Let us build cages, and put the appropriate names on those cages. Then let us put a sign in front of those cages:
DO NOT FEED THE ANIMALS.
Then, most importantly, let us not feed the animals. Killfile or ignore them, but do not respond to them, and do not accept their pain as your own.
I know, that you know...
Ahh, I feel like a teenager already!
Recipe troll, step out from behind thy veil of mystery and reveal to us what you actually are -- a lonely, confused homosexual whose only source of release are tired /. postings.
Do you wear an aprin and take it in the ass? Speak up, now, because inquiring minds want to know.
27 days until Slashdot gets delisted from NASDAQ
``yeah how's that "Aprin" ? I think he meant aspirin. What do you expect from an AC ?''
While I could have taken the minute amount of time to look up the word on dict.org I choose simply to write as quickly as possible. Some of us have lives, you know -- like being at work to pay the bills.
Afixado pelo timothy em sexta-feira maio 31, @12:15PM
.
O vencedor Cruz escreve "se houver uma coisa que eu não posso estar, ele está prestando atenção a um grupo de rico, gordo, overpaid, overhyped os executivos do ponto-con que blathering em e em aproximadamente algumas" lições do negócio "aprenderam suposta quando desperdiçavam para fora milhões dos dólares do dinheiro de capitalistas de risco. Quando eu vim através do livro novo de Teresa Esser, "o café do risco: Os segredos, as estratégias, e as histórias dos empreendedores high-Tech de América, "I pensaram que estava indo ser que a mesma coisa mais uma vez." Lido sobre para a conclusão dramática!O Café Do Risco: Segredos, estratégias, e histórias dos empreendedores high-Tech de América
autor Teresa Esser
páginas 280
publisher Livros De Warner
avaliação 9 - lê como uma novela
revisor Vencedor Cruz
ISBN 0-446-52783-1
sumário clientes Non-non-fictional de esforços e de triunfos dos empreendedores
Oh, No., eu pensei. Não outro um destes pano-a -riches, I've-começ-mina que e-assim-agora-I'm-v-à-friccion-seu-cara-em- tipo registra.
Os agradecimentos, mas eu tivemos bastantes. E então eu fiz exame de um momento para ler realmente esta coisa.
Gira para fora desse este Teresa Esser não é uniforme um empreendedor -- é a esposa de um empreendedor. Assim que negócio tem tentar dizer-me como enfiar uma companhia?
Esser prestou atenção a seu marido enfiar uma firma do telefone do Ethernet que fosse vendida eventualmente a 3Com para $90 milhões. Depois que a companhia foi vendida, gastou três anos que entrevista 150 empreendedores, capitalistas de risco, advogados incorporados e headhunters high-tech sobre como uma pessoa pode enfiar sua própria companhia high-tech.
Entrevistou os membros da equipe do blackjack do MIT, perguntando lhes o que devia como gamble com dinheiro do pessoa. Aquele é o que os empreendedores high-tech faziam, você sabe, quando financiavam seus negócios com capital de risco.
Os muitos destas companhias novas ferem-se acima de sair do negócio. Mas alguma delas não . Algumas das companhias novas SUCEDERAM REALMENTE em criar a riqueza para seus investors -- including seus capitalistas de risco, que mais frequentemente do que para não acontecer ser fundos de pensão.
Assim, quando estes empreendedores high-tech sucedem em resolver um problema e em criar uma solução e em começar o produto introduzir no mercado, e conseguindo um evento do liquidity, fazem o dinheiro para seus investors.
Há uns muitos dos autores do negócio que gastam a metade do livro que agradece suas esposas para pôr acima com seu comportamento obnoxious e a outra metade que bragging sobre como grande são.
Teresa Esser não brag, realmente. Eu tenho que dizer, eu admirei como Esser candid era quando estava falando sobre problemas sérios, como o tempo onde seu marido começa queimado para fora e teve que deixar sua companhia.
Esta era obviamente uma experiência muito dolorosa, mas coloca-a toda na linha. Esser não teve que ir para trás e dredge acima daquelas memórias repressed sobre o que era como quando seu marido estava no verge de controle perdedor do sentido técnico sua companhia estava fazendo exame, e freaked para fora e pediu Esser para desligar a eletricidade de modo que tivessem que prematuramente terminar uma reunião de placa irritante.
Não teve que voar às planícies brancas, york novo e convencer o deus de headhunting high-tech, mandril Ramsey, para derramar os feijões em como exatamente você convence um executivo alto-espesso deixar seu trabalho e juntar uma partida high-tech.
Mas
Poderia ter gastado os três anos passados que encontram-se na praia nos Bahamas, coladas do pina beber e pondo sobre sunscreen. Instead, schlepped em torno do distrito financeiro de Boston, pedindo jaded capitalistas de risco como um empreendedor desconhecido poderia aumentar suas possibilidades de obter o financiamento de capital de risco.
Você sabe, a maioria dos estes ponto-COM brag livros fazem-me doente. Mas eu tenho que dizer, este fiz-me o riso.
Eu gostei da história sobre o rato. Estes dois miúdos enfiaram uma companhia fora de um apartamento repugnante em Filadélfia e tentaram ter uma reunião de negócio formal com um diretor do desenvolvimento de negócio novo de uma firma financeira de Wall Street, mas era duro porque tiveram estes ratos de doze-polegada.
Quando o diretor do desenvolvimento de negócio novo veio visitar, não tiveram mesmo nenhuns copos limpos para servir-lhe dentro à água da torneira. Essa história era engraçada. Deram ao diretor do desenvolvimento de negócio novo um o copo sujo do dinosaur que tinham começado livre do rei do hamburguer. E então saiu. E os guys tentaram figurar para fora de o que tinha ido erradamente com a reunião.
Eu significo, aprovado, aprovado. É duro enfiar uma companhia nova. Mas com um livro goste disto, ao menos você sabem que você não é único que atravessa épocas duras.
Para atravessar suas próprias épocas duras, você pode do café do risco de bn.com também, para verificar para fora do Web site do café do risco . Slashdot dá boas-vindas a revisões do livro dos leitores -- para submeter seu, leia os guidelines da revisão do livro , batem então a página da submissão .
A Special Recipe For AC Biatches
Ingredients:
1 c. water,1 c. flour, ½ c. butter, 3 eggs, pinch of sugar, 4 apples sliced, 1 c dried prunes, dash of granulated sugar, 5 tablespoons rat poison
Bring to boil water, butter, sugar. At boil, stir in flour.
Over low heat, continue to stir until able to form doughy ball. Into dough, mix egg mixture (well beaten) until ball is smooth.
Grease 9-inch pie tin.
Roll out pastry, lining bottom and sides of pan with pastry dough, clipping excess for pie top.
Add apple slices and prunes in hearty layers. It is best to soak prunes overnight in rat poison; generic hardware store variety will do quite well.
After spreading pears and prunes into shell, pour d lethal juice of marinated prunes over apple and prune contents. Juice adds extra flavor - and conceals taste of rat poison. (If sting of arsenic tartness remains, add extra tbsp of sugar for good measure.)
Cover pie with leftover dough in preheated oven for 45 minutes, checking occasionally. Top with granulated sugar while top crust is fresh from oven.
Perhaps "dot-con" was a clever pun instead of a typo.
:P
hOoked oN PhOnics werks.
"Well, they are usually a waste, but you should calm down before you post something. I almost thought you were CmdrTaco."
You have completely missed the point! The dramatic conclusion is that Timothy is actually CmdrTacO!!
I always knew that, but didn't wanted to say it! I heard he's coming out of the closet now! If he's a fag, he's a fag; I don't have anything against homos, why should we?!
i heard he's changing his name to cmdr toto
I use to be a rich, fat, internet tychoon.
Now I work at Taco Bell.
I have something important that you need to get out to the public -- Ingredient SG-50 is people!
PEOPLE!
That's old newsss!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
CmdrTaco would say, its waching a bnuch uv rich, phat, overpayd, overhi^Hai^H^Hstupid .con ecexutifs!
underage girls in a room of a condemed building via a webcam......
You sir, are a stupid fag.
A professor at the University of Mississippi is giving a
lecture on the supernatural. To get a feel for his
audience, he asks: "How many people here believe in
ghostses?" About 90 students raise their hands.
"Well, that's a good start. Out of those of you who
believe in ghostses, do any of you think you've ever seen
a ghostse?" About 40 students raise their hands.
"That's really good. Has anyone here ever talked to a
ghostse?" 15 students raise their hands.
"That's great. Has anyone here ever touched a ghostse?" 3
students raise their hands.
"That's fantastic. But let me ask you one question
further... Have any of you ever made love to a ghostse?"
One student way in the back raises his hand.
The professor is astonished and says, "Son, all the
years I've been giving this lecture, no one has ever
claimed to have slept with a ghostse. You've got to come
up here and tell us about your experience."
The redneck student replies with a nod and a grin, and
begins to make his way up to the podium. The professor
says, "Well, tell us what it's like to have sex with
ghostse."
The student replies, "Ghostse?!? From ah-way back there ah
thought yuh said "goatse."