Interview With a VC
By Michael Parsons, The Industry Standard, 27 September 1999
Copyright 1999 The Industry Standard
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"I see ..." says the VC thoughtfully as he walks across the room to the
window. For a long time he stands there in the dim evening light, a
silhouette against the passing beams of traffic on Sand Hill Road.
"How much tape do you have with you?" asks the VC. "Enough for my story?"
"Sure." I take out my tape recorder. "It's sort of dark in here. I'm not
sure I can see my notebook."
"I am going to turn on the overhead projector," he says.
"But I thought VCs didn't like the light."
The VC smiles and presses a button on the table. At once the room is flooded
with a harsh yellow light. For the first time I can see his face.
"Dear God!" I cry, my hands clutching the edge of the table.
The VC's shirt is utterly white and smooth, as though woven from bleached
bone. His Armani suit is cut with pitiless severity. His face is pale,
despite a thousand hours of golf, and is utterly still and cold, except for
the green eyes, which burn with the fierce heat of high finance. He smiles,
revealing perfect, long white teeth.
"Do you see? Do you see what I am? You still want the interview?"
I nod.
The VC sits down slowly and says gently, confidently, "Don't be afraid.
Start the tape."
I do what I am told.
"What – what are you?"
"You know what I am, Michael. The young men and women come to me and they
say, 'I have a beautiful idea. I have a marvelous business plan.' They say
they want to get capitalized, and get this sucker off the makeshift desk in
their second bedroom and into a warehouse space South of Market with
flexible black desk lamps and an Odwalla fridge. And I listen to their
story, although I have heard it so many times before and I know how it will
end. Do you know how such stories end, Michael? They end with a question.
And the question is always about money."
I shift my weight in the Aeron chair. The gaze from his green eyes makes it
hard for me to catch my breath.
"I listen to the question, and I pause. They think I am going to ask them if
they have access to a huge potential market, whether the idea will scale,
who else is working on similar projects, and what, if anything, they plan to
do about 'the Microsoft thing.' But I don't ask them about that at all."
He leans forward. I realize he is taller than I had first thought.
"I ask them if they have the hunger. I ask them if they will ignore the
piteous cries of their children, who will want them to attend the school
play when they need to meet some angels in New York. I ask them if they will
ignore their husband's whining about 'quality time' on their wedding
anniversary. I ask them if they will be able to listen to a problem
employee's hard-luck story while calculating the equity they'll free up by
terminating his contract before the next stock split. I ask them if they
understand that there is something better than love, better than sex, better
than food, better than comfort, something so sweet that it makes all the
perfumes of Arabia seem faint and unimpressive, something so delicious that
it makes the ripest peach seem hard and wooden."
I fidget uneasily. "What do they say?" He laughs a smooth, musical laugh.
"Why, the weak ones run back to their corporate sinecures, PTA meetings and
community-service projects. But the strong, the strong sit up a little
straighter. They start reading earnings surveys in business magazines. They
begin to see the tremendous moral authority available to people who own a
little place in Atherton.
"And suddenly they no longer feel connected to the humans that surround
them. They decide to take their first bite and rough out a vague e-commerce
scheme on the back of a napkin at Hawthorne Lane. They start small and build
a young company. They work tremendously long hours but never tire. They buy
other companies. They develop extraordinary vision and see strategic
opportunities invisible to normal people. They smell financial opportunities
at astonishing distances. Eventually, no corporate structure can hold them.
They become what I have become. They become a VC."
I interrupt. "You know, that's absolutely fascinating. I'm really glad we
got this chance to chat, because I'm afraid I have to admit something: I
lied to you. I'm not really here to write a story; it's just impossible to
get on your schedule these days. The thing is, we've got this killer Net
play that I wanted to run by you."
The VC smiles, gently, confidently, and says, "Why, I'd love to hear it.
..."
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