Microserfs

style focus grouping, but they won’t admit it. So they pose as multimedia visionaries instead. They might as well be slitting open a sheep and reading the entrails. It’s a big exercise in chain-yanking. Let the floor show begin!”

We arrived and got out of the car. “Ethan, here — some leaves have fallen on your shoulder.” I snowplowed away drifts of dandruff from his suit. “There,” I said, “all set.”

Condensed Version …

Venture Capital Meeting (My First [and Last])

1

Me:

(I’m dressed like an outpatient; these VC people are dressed like they’re about to whisper a deal into David Geffen’s left ear. Why didn’t Ethan dress me properly? He began flaking the moment we walked in the doorway. His shoulders!) “Hello.”

2)

VC Woman with Barbra-Streisand-in-Concert Hairdo:

“Investors want to see a committed, marketing-sensitive visionary at the product’s helm.” (Who the heck is that … Michael? Marketing Sensitive?)

3)

Me:

(Nodding and seeming interested)

“Hmmm…”

4)

A different VC with an eerie resemblance to Barry Diller:

“One of the main reasons people start companies is to control their environment and the people they work with.” Michael nods. Ethan agrees.

5)

Richie Rich Boomersomething with loud Hermes tie:

silence

6)

Barbra:

(earnestly)

“Is there — an opening for world class leadership in this product’s area?”

7)

Barry:

“Start-ups appeal either to jaded cynics — because they know the way things really work — or to the totally naive — because they don’t. Which are you?”

8)

Ethan:

“We’re that irreducible 5 percent of talented people — our culture’s pearl divers.”

9)

Young VC guy, who would be the same age as Rosemary’s Baby:

“You’ll need more than lots of pearl divers …” (smug titters) “You need focus groups. People surprise you. They tell you that what you thought was worth $99 is only worth $29.”

10)

Barry:

Sugarishly: “We have to function as parents to new companies who are in the process of growing up.”

11)

Hermes tie:

more silence

12)

Ethan:

“That’s where I come in.” (give prisoner last cigarette)

13)

Ethan:

(now on a roll)

“VC was in a lull until spring of 1992, and then came” [awed pause] “convergence., Unless there’s a breakthrough hit, by 1997, multimedia is going to be a leper industry. We have the missing killer app right here.”

14)

Barbra:

“Yes, but as a VC firm we like to feel we’re beyond ‘the hit thing’ now. In general, we don’t like small, technology-oriented companies. There’s nothing the world wants as little as a new technology company. If you give a company $2 million, they’ll spend it all and never ship a profitable product.”

15)

Hermes tie:

noise of his silence equals noise of his tie

16)

Rosemary’s Baby:

“With a round-one seed, all of the risk is ahead of you.”