Lee Le Clair

A member of the Philip Greenspun's Homepage community since April 25, 2001

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April 25, 2001, on ArsDigita: From Start-Up to Bust-Up:
The question that comes to my mind is why VCs were brought in at all if aD was making $20M/year. If additional management was necessary to track projects and tasks, then hire it. The careful, controlled growth that built aD originally could have been sustained in spite of market downturns. The typical reason for taking VC money is to expand quickly - scale the business and make the really big money. That's the gamble and that appears to be what did not pan out. The danger of taking someone else's money is their-nose-in-your-business to protect their investment. In spite of the way it was supposed to work out with this arrangement, it obviously did not. I have read and love Philip's online work but I've also been to a CalTech seminar so I know that this article paints a slightly rosy picture of running a tight ship (I heard Philip say that he paid "22 year olds $100,000/year and give them 5 weeks of vacation..."). Perhaps it was just a recruiting statement. If the company had continu...