Steve Blank Quotes

Venture capital today is clustered in just a few locations - Silicon Valley, New York, Boston, and D.C. It's far from efficiently distributed and accessible.

Whatever the potential pitfalls, banks are increasingly enthusiastic about venture capital, particularly in new companies with strong prospects in fields like health care and technology.

The City of London has never been known for understanding technology and has never matched Silicon Valley's tradition of knowledgeable investment in technology start-ups, just as the U.K. government has never matched the vast investment made by the U.S. government.

There's almost too much venture capital in India - there are issues with seed capital, but for venture capital, there's a lot money chasing deals here.

Venture capital is always wanting to go up market.

Silicon Valley has been a technology capital like New York is a financial capital.

Venture capitalists buy minority positions in young companies they think will grow quickly; buy-out investors buy most or all of companies they think can be turned around by fixing a few basic things.

There is no country in the world where it's as easy to find venture capital in the stock market as the United States.

The San Francisco Bay Area has more VC firms and dollars invested than all East Coast cities combined.

The amounts of money in Silicon Valley are staggering.

In summer of 2008, I meet a guy named Michael Seibel. And Michael Seibel says, 'There are these people called angels, and they'll give you money.' The first thing I thought is, 'I can't believe this guy believes in angels.' That's how naive I was.

Venture capital is debt. People don't understand that.

I'm hard-pressed to think of companies that don't need venture capital that are going after big opportunities. I think, in almost all cases, if they're going after big opportunities, they are going to need to raise quite a bit of money.

I like most of the venture capitalists I know; they're smart, well-intended guys who genuinely enjoy helping entrepreneurs succeed. And I love venture capital and investment capital of all categories - its economic impact is proven. The more of it the better.

Beware angel investors: they can be disruptive.

We need to encourage investors to invest in high-technology startups.

There aren't many sources of money in San Diego, apart from local partnerships and local investors. It's pretty starkly polarized to Silicon Valley.

I've been a customer of the top venture capital firms, so I know exactly what they do and don't do.

I think this is also a great time to invest in private equity, helping companies grow from the ground up.

Venture capitalists are like lemmings jumping on the software bandwagon.

There's never been a good period of venture capital when prices weren't high.

We have co-opted seed funds. You know, Y Combinator, that was completely our money. We have secret handshakes with a whole bunch of people. Very dangerous, because word gets out that so-and-so's money is Sequoia's money, that would not be a good thing.

One thing I would like to see in Vancouver and Canada is something similar to the PayPal mafia. They were all early employees of PayPal. They all had monster exits with PayPal, and they were able to take their winnings and form a syndicate that co-invests.

I don't understand why young entrepreneurs feel this pressure to take venture capital or go public. Don't get me wrong: Public companies are A-OK with me. I just think there is another way. Staying private is a lot more sane.

You know what works in venture capital? A group of incredibly smart, connected people who have the financial wherewithal and risk appetite to make multi-million dollar bets on unproven ideas and inexperienced founders. People who can make decisions quickly, and who spend their time trying to help entrepreneurs make the most of that cash.