Blog
Thoughts from Mucker
Is Uber Really Worth $40 ($50?) Billion?
This is the second part of my last post. . . Uber’s stratospheric valuation has joined “the weather” as the conversation topic of last resort at awkward dinner and lunch...
Reconstructing Uber’s Uber Financials
Like many of people in the tech community, I’ve been following Uber with a mix of awe, horror, and admittedly, jealousy. How exactly is it doing? How is it worth...
Getting Past the Catch-22 of Venture Capital
There are some venture capitalists who consider themselves “entrepreneurial VCs” because they identify with and approach investing from an entrepreneur perspective. Others are actually former entrepreneurs who join a venture...
The secret of great product managers: Balancing the worlds of ‘techie’ and ‘fuzzy’
Microsoft created the “modern” role of product manager 25 years ago, and the job holds an aura of myth even today. Two-and-a-half decades later, the role of product manager is...
Tale of Two Valleys: LA and the Bay Area from an Investor’s Perspective
Almost 30 years ago, my father decided to uproot the entire family from Taiwan to the United States so that his academically “inconsistent” son could have an education tolerant and...
When Partnering With Giants, the Warning Signs of a Sour Deal
When building a company, acquiring a user or closing a customer one at a time can seem like competing in a marathon while knee deep in mud — making progress...
The Term Sheet Mating Dance
There is no word more sacred and yet over-used than “term sheet” in the entrepreneurial circle. The pursuit of the mythical VC term sheet has blinded entrepreneurs from the real...
The Seed Valley of Death: Caught Between $19B and Series A Crunch
Even before Sequoia Capital made $3.5 billion on a $60 million investment in WhatsApp, the seed- and early-stage funding landscape had already changed significantly. Most major VC firms have significantly...
From Hubris to Confidence
What does Mark Zuckerberg, Jack Dorsey, Larry Page, Marc Andreessen, Elon Musk, and Peter Thiel have in common with me? We’ve all guest lectured at the Stanford Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders...
The Enterprise Self Service Myth
As techies and nerds, we tend to believe in the utopians promise of technology enabling, at the very least, automation, and at the very best, intelligence. As consumers we have...