Top VCs Tell Congress: PROTECT IP Will Harm Innovation

from the good-for-them dept

While the entertainment industry has assumed that they would have a smooth ride getting PROTECT IP approved, it seems they've run into a bit of turbulence. We've already pointed out that both the NY Times and LA Times have come out against the bill as written and now a group of some of the most well known, and most successful, venture capitalists have all gotten together to send a letter to every member of Congress warning that PROTECT IP will harm investment and innovation. The list of people signing it really is a who's who of the top venture capitalists around. You've got Vinod Khosla, Fred Wilson, Marc Andreessen, Ron Conway, Bill Draper, Esther Dyson, Brad Feld, Roger Ehrenberg, Eric Hippeau, Reid Hoffman, Tim O'Reilly, Alan Patricof, Danny Rimer, and many many others. In total 53 of the top venture capitalist signed on, and they don't mince words about why this is a bad bill:

The bill is ripe for abuse, as it allows rights-holders to require third-parties to block access to and take away revenues sources for online services, with limited oversight and due process.

In particular:

1. By requiring "information location tools" -- potentially encompassing any "director[ies], index[es], reference[s], pointer[s], or hypertext link[s]" -- to remove access to entire domains, the bill puts burdens on countless Internet services.

2. By requiring access to sites to be blocked by Domain Name System providers, it endangers the security and integrity of the Internet.

3. The bill's private right of action will no doubt be used by many rights-holders in ways that create significant burdens on legitimate online commerce services. The scope of orders and cost of litigation could be significant, even for companies acting in good faith.

While we understand PIPA was originally intended to deal with “rogue” foreign sites, we think PIPA will ultimately put American innovators and investors at a clear disadvantage in the global economy. For one, services dedicated to infringement will simply make their sites easy to find and access in other ways, and determined users who want to find blocked content will simply shift to services outside the reach of U.S. law, in turn giving a leg up to foreign search engines, DNS providers, social networks, and others. Second, PIPA creates a dangerous precedent and a convenient excuse for countries to engage in protectionism and censorship against U.S. services. These countries will point to PIPA as precedent for taking action against U.S. technology and Internet companies.

As one of the VCs behind the letter, Brad Burnham, noted in his blog post about the bill, unlike most of the support for PROTECT IP, this is not a "usual group" of lobbyists. This is not an organized group or a trade organization. This is a bunch of very concerned people with their finger on the pulse of innovation, who are quite scared of the bill:

Venture capitalists are notoriously apolitical. We believe in markets. We are not asking for tax breaks or favorable regulatory rulings, we are asking for restraint.

The group of venture capitalists who joined us in expressing concern about S. 968, the PROTECT IP Act ("PIPA") represent a broad range of political views. We share a passion for start-ups and a conviction that young companies are a fantastic source of productive innovation. This group is responsible for a significant amount of investment in the U.S. economy.

Unfortunately, chances are their pleas will be ignored, in part because they're not a big lobbying organization. However, anyone supporting PROTECT IP would be smart to take a look at who's speaking here, note that these are not the usual folks who speak up about what's going on in DC, and recognize that this isn't just a standard complaint. These are people who are legitimately worried about the impact of such a bill on American innovation.

Filed Under: copyright, innovation, protect ip, rogue sites, venture capital

Are Silicon Valley Angel Investors Colluding Over Deals?

from the meritocracy? dept

"People of the same trade seldom meet together, even for merriment and diversion, but the conversation ends in a conspiracy against the public, or in some contrivance to raise prices." -- Adam Smith, the Wealth of Nations
Mike Arrington, over at TechCrunch, has a troubling story about an apparent meeting between some of the top angel investors in Silicon Valley, allegedly to collude on deals. Arrington was alerted to the meeting -- bizarrely held at a restaurant where anyone could see them -- and while he knows these guys well, they were clearly unhappy to see him and wouldn't talk to him at all. After he spoke to some investors later, he got the scoop on what was happening:

This group of investors, which together account for nearly 100% of early stage startup deals in Silicon Valley, have been meeting regularly to compare notes. Early on it was mostly to complain about a variety of things. But the conversation has evolved to the point where these super angels are actually colluding (and I don't use that word lightly) to solve a number of problems, say multiple sources who are part of the group and were at the dinner. According to these souces, the ongoing agenda includes:

• Complaints about Y Combinator's growing power, and how to counteract competitiveness in Y Combinator deals
• Complaints about rising deal valuations and they can act as a group to reduce those valuations
• How the group can act together to keep traditional venture capitalists out of deals entirely
• How the group can act together to keep out new angel investors invading the market and driving up valuations.
• More mundane things, like agreeing as a group not to accept convertible notes in deals (an entrepreneur-friendly type of deal).
• One source has also said that there is a wiki of some sort that the group has that explicitly talks about how the group should act as one to keep deal valuations down.

As Arrington notes, this seems like a classic case of collusion and price-fixing. He doesn't name names, but if you're talking about the 15 angels who represent most of the early stage startup deals, it's not difficult to put together that list if you spend any time in startup circles. Arrington notes that some of the participants he spoke to said they were uncomfortable with the meetings, and there to "gather information, not participate," but it's still troubling. One bit of disclosure here, while I don't know who was at the meeting, if Arrington is being accurate in saying that they represent nearly all of the early stage deals, there's a very good chance that at least one of Techdirt's investors would have been involved.

While there are plenty more angels in Silicon Valley than just 15, it is true that, these days, companies getting investments from some of the "top" angels is seen as the ticket needed to move up the chain to big name venture capitalists as well. So hearing that a group of these investors may be colluding to effectively fix pricing is bad news for the supposed "meritocracy" of funding in Silicon Valley, and should be seen as a pretty serious problem.

Along those lines, I should say kudos to Arrington for publishing such a story. While he doesn't name names, these investors are the key sources for many of his stories, so publishing this story is probably burning some bridges with sources. It's good to see that he wouldn't let that get in the way (not that I thought he would -- Mike's always been great in that a good story trumps all other concerns, which is highly admirable).

Filed Under: angel investing, collusion, price fixing, silicon valley, venture capital

House Increases Taxes On Venture Capital At A Time When More Investment In Innovation Is Needed

from the bad-thinking dept

For a little while now, we've noted various plans among politicians to change tax laws for private equity fund managers -- which is supposed to close some loopholes that allowed some bad investment decision making to happen. But one of the serious problems with those efforts are that they lump together all types of private equity, including hedge funds (which do have some issues) and venture capital, which functions entirely differently. Despite numerous warnings about this, it looks like the House has still gone forward with passing a bill that will greatly increase the taxes on venture capital partners, taxing part of the money they make as profits from investments as traditional income, rather than as capital gains (which is taxed at a much lower rate).

While I don't think this change will be as devastating as some have made it out to be, it could chill some aspects of investment. And, while I also don't believe that venture capital is the only way to build an innovative business these days, I do think it has an important place in the ecosystem, and is quite helpful for many companies. Taking away some of the incentives for venture investments, right at a time when we need greater innovation seems like a fundamentally short-sighted move. I understand the argument on the other side, that the partners are investing other people's money, and thus it's not "their" investment from which to earn capital gains, but to some extent that's misleading. The setup of most venture funds with carried interest (i.e., the profit share for venture partners) is to effectively trade their time and effort in the investment for a part of the investment. So it might not be their cash, but they do invest in other ways, and for that they get a share of the profits.

There are certainly lots of problems with our financial system today, and many questions about the private equity space. But lumping in venture capitalists who do long-term, high risk investments in private companies to help them grow, with hedge funds that do short-term, highly speculative gambling-type investments without much focus on the underlying business or prospects, is a dangerous move. There are problems with the venture capital model, but for the most part it works quite well in funding all sorts of innovative companies. Putting this kind of speed bump into the market won't stop venture capital investments, but it could have some pretty serious consequences, especially in terms of the type of companies VCs are willing to invest in. The Senate still needs to vote on this issue, and hopefully they recognize that this is not the time to punish venture capitalists.

Filed Under: capital gains, innovation, investment, taxes, venture capital

Apparently Even VCs Get Confused Over Ratio Ownership Compared To Total Value

from the and-those-are-the-VCs-you-don't-want dept

Venture capitalist Fred Wilson recently had a great post where he calls out a bunch of his colleagues in the venture capital business (not by name) for insisting on owning a certain percentage of a company in order to invest. Fred notes, correctly, that it's not the percentage that matters, but the actual value (and the appreciation of it) of the equity that one holds. In simplest terms: owning 10% of a $1 billion company is always going to be a hell of a lot better than owning 40% of a $1 million company.

But, what I find amusing -- and what Wilson doesn't mention -- is that this very argument is quite commonly presented to entrepreneurs from VCs. That is, when an entrepreneur frets about giving up a portion of his or her company, a VC will often make the point that "with our investment, we can take your company's valuation way up -- so even if you own a smaller percentage, your absolute value will increase." And it's a true argument (if the value increase happens). And, in many cases, it's the very same VCs who will use a line like this that then insist on owning a certain percentage. It makes you wonder if they believe what they're saying themselves, or if they're just using all of it as a negotiating tactic to take a larger cut of the deal.

Filed Under: control, ownership, value, venture capital

Venture Capitalists May Be Left Out Of Burdensome Regulations On Private Equity

from the good-news dept

Last month, we were a bit worried that an admittedly clueless Congress might lump venture capitalists in with other private equity firms in putting forth new regulations. Venture capital is quite different from basic private equity, and the proposed regulations would be quite burdensome for VCs without having any benefit. These "systemic" risk rules don't make sense for VCs who aren't investing in public investment vehicles for short times, but instead do long term strategic investments in private startups. VCs have been pushing Congress on this, and it looks like they finally got through to someone, as it appears that Barney Frank is looking to exempt VCs from any such regulation. This makes a lot of sense as venture capital and traditional private equity are very different animals, and putting them both under the same regulatory rules makes little sense. Putting VCs under systemic risk regulations makes even less sense, considering how unlikely it is that VCs investing in startups are involved in any sort of systemic risk issues.

Filed Under: barney frank, innovation, private equity, regulations, silicon valley, systemic risk, venture capital

Venture Capital: A Part Of The Ecosystem, But Not The Ecosystem

from the understanding-vc dept

This happens every so often, but in the last week or so, there's been a spate of "VCs are bad" types of discussions happening on various blogs. It kicked off with a blog post from Jason Fried at 37Signals, blaming VCs for pushing Mint.com to sell to Intuit. VC Fred Wilson did a nice job responding to that charge by pointing out the usual calculus in figuring out when to sell. Amusingly, very few people seem to notice what Fred was basically saying in his post. The undercurrent was that Mint.com likely wasn't doing nearly as well as its cheerleaders have assumed -- and thus, selling out made a lot of sense, not from a VC perspective, but from the founders' perspective.

Still, it's pretty popular in Silicon Valley to knock VCs, and TechCrunch has a post from Vivek Wadhwa pouring on the VC bashing, complaining about VCs taking way too much credit for innovation. Now, I'm a big fan of Wadhwa and his research on startups and innovation, and I'm among the first to bash VCs when it's warranted (and, yes, there are plenty of times when it's very, very warranted), but I think Wadhwa's piece goes too far. He's right that it's a little silly that the the National Venture Capital Association (NVCA) seems to be taking credit for all of the revenue and jobs created from any startup that has ever taken any venture money, but that doesn't mean that venture capital is meaningless in innovation.

While I'm actually a huge fan of building companies without venture capital (and am doing that myself), I think what people need to realize is that venture money is quite useful in enabling certain types of businesses. The problem is when people (very often Silicon Valley people) get into the mindset that raising venture capital is an end goal in itself, rather than looking at the overall business and seeing if it even needs venture money. During the dot com bubble, there was a time when people looked at venture capital like revenue -- the more you raised, the better you were doing, rather than recognizing that it really meant you just had a bigger hole to dig yourself out of. However, in some cases, where a company really does need investment capital to take a business to the next level, smart venture money can be a great help.

The nice thing today is that more and more businesses can be started, built and can scale without that need. That doesn't mean that there's anything wrong with venture capital. In fact, it's better if it's easier to build businesses. But that also doesn't mean that VC is somehow bad or isn't really a key part in accelerating certain innovative businesses. Venture capital is a part of the ecosystem, and that's a good thing. There are times when people give it too much credit, and there are other times when it doesn't get enough credit, but the real trick is just in understanding where and when it makes sense.

Filed Under: innovation, silicon valley, venture capital

Congress Clueless About Venture Capital... Still Wants To Regulate It

from the this-makes-no-sense dept

Following the financial crisis there's obviously a lot of interest in more carefully regulating aspects of the private equity markets, given that behind-the-scenes financial efforts have been seen (rightly or wrongly) as part of the cause of the mess. But, of course, Congress can barely understand what caused the problem, let alone other aspects of the the financial system, so they end up regulating by shooting in the dark. The latest is that the various attempts to put regulations on hedge funds and private equity firms that invest in public companies (which in many cases really were sneaky ways to get around regulations) may be applied to venture capitalists as well, despite the fact that venture capital is a totally different beast. It doesn't invest in public companies. It doesn't aim for sneaky quick flips. It's true long term investment capital, directly investing in private startup companies to help them grow. It's real investment -- not gambling. But Congress doesn't seem to realize that.

In a recent Congressional hearing where venture capitalist Trevor Loy explained this to our elected officials, Senator Jim Bunning of Kentucky apparently told Loy that he didn't believe him that VCs invest in private companies rather than companies likely to be rated by the various ratings agencies (I'd link to the story where this was noted, but the publication that wrote it, put it behind a paywall and apparently doesn't want traffic -- there's a Google cache for now). And, yet, these are the folks writing the regulations. This is why some of us get nervous about gov't regulations. Yes, in an ideal world, perfectly knowledgeable regulators might possibly be able to divinely create regulations that work. But that's not what we have.

Filed Under: jim bunning, regulations, venture capital

Treasury Department Meddling In Venture Capital For No Good Reason

from the not-all-private-equity-is-the-same dept

The Wall Street Journal has an important editorial pointing out why it's a mistake for Treasury Secretary Timothy Geither to include venture capital funds in his new regulatory plan to deal with "systemic risk." There's no doubt that highly leveraged hedge funds contributed greatly to the current economic situation creating a level of systemic risk that we're only just coming to terms with. However, it's not at all clear what venture capital has to do with that. Yes, both are unregulated funds of private equity, but that's about where the similarities end. Venture capital relies very little on debt, and is usually a way for wealthy investors to bet money more long term on new innovations, rather than the sort of short-term speculation that is more common with hedge funds.

Yet, for some reason, they're being lumped together and will have the same regulatory burdens. This could significantly hinder venture capitalists, similar to some other recent regulatory changes, creating unnecessary and wasteful burdens that are more for show than any actual effort to protect the economy. As the editorial points out: we've already stress tested the venture capital world, when the dot com bubble burst, it didn't cause any systemic risk. No banks failed because of the bubble bursting. So why is the government suddenly acting like VCs are a threat to the widespread economy now?

Filed Under: economy, systemic risk, timothy geithner, treasury, venture capital

Throwing Money At Problems Usually Is Not The Solution

from the time-to-work-smarter dept

Thomas Friedman has stirred up some controversy with his suggestion that the government (instead of giving it to dying automakers) should give $20 billion to top venture capital firms and have them invest in new innovation. The initial thought makes sense, and, in fact, we discussed something quite similar a few months ago -- though, concerning a new venture fund in the UK, rather than giving money to existing funds. Indeed, if we must throw money at the economy, it should be to invest in new innovation, rather than throwing good money after bad. However, Fred Wilson points out that the top VC firms don't want or need the cash, and in fact, adding more money to the venture investing pool at this point might cause a lot more harm than good.

And, that brings up an important point, worth discussing, that the government seems to be missing: throwing money at problems is very rarely the best solution. Often the problems are caused by too much money sloshing around (see: Wall Street). Dumping more money into the system just encourages the same inefficiencies and bad decision making. The real fix to problems is to wipe out the broken parts of the system, not fund them further. Yes, letting some of these businesses fail will have rippling effects into other parts of the economy -- but shouldn't the focus be on helping out those aspects, rather than rewarding companies like GM and Chrysler that have screwed up dreadfully?

While there's something to be said for taking money when it's available, plenty of experienced entrepreneurs know that having too much money on hand is almost as bad as not having enough. Having too little money makes you focus and makes you creative out of necessity. Having too much money makes you lazy and puts you in a position to hide or ignore the real issues for way too long. What we should be working on right now is fixing the systemic problems throughout our economy -- not papering them over with cash.

Filed Under: bailout, congress, stimulus, venture capital

Universal Music Group Slapped Down (Again) In Case Against Veoh

from the can't-sue-the-investors dept

The ongoing lawsuit between Universal Music Group and online video site Veoh is seen by many as a precursor to the various lawsuits against YouTube (or, more specifically, the "big" lawsuit from Viacom). So far, it's not going well for the content companies. In another lawsuit, filed by an adult video company, Veoh won easily. In the UMG case, the judge has already shot down Universal Music's arguments for why Veoh shouldn't get DMCA safe harbor protection.

The latest news is that the judge has also dismissed Universal Music's attempt to include Veoh's investors as a part of the lawsuit. Universal's attempt to do this matched Universal's decision to sue Bertelsmann, a competitor who was also an investor in Napster. This made little sense to us at the time. Making an investor liable for actions of a company they invest in seems to open up a pandora's box of problems. Think of all the "shareholder lawsuits" you now see against management for corporate misdeeds... and turn that around, whereby anyone hurt by a company's actions could sue all of the investors. If investors are liable for a company's misdeeds, then suddenly it becomes a huge liability to invest in anything.

Eventually, Universal Music bought Bertelsmann... and rather than continue suing itself, Bertelsmann "settled." Bertelsmann (now UMG) later settled similar lawsuits brought by other labels, so the full issue of investor liability wasn't really addressed. In this case, the judge found that the only way Universal could make a credible claim that the investors were also liable was to show that they were actively encouraging increased copyright infringement after it was established that Veoh was infringing. That hasn't been established yet, at all, and it appears that the investors were actively pushing Veoh to block infringing content. So, Universal's claim against the investors has absolutely no merit whatsoever.

Filed Under: investors, liability, venture capital
Companies: universal music, veoh