A History of Venture Capital - Creative Destruction (Myth20c - Ep138)

Invention is often described as 1% inspiration and 99% perspiration. In the high-flying game of venture capital, where the stakes are in the billions of dollars and the competition is on a global scale, the odds for true invention are even longer. Words like innovation are often bandied about, with recent entrants like ‘disruption’ taking a more aggressive spin on the culture of Silicon Valley, but the true success stories, while building on the backs of some genuinely breakthrough developments such as the microprocessor and the personal computer, have given way to more derivative works such as scrapbooking on a website (Pinterest) and taxi cabs on a smartphone (Uber.) Venture capital, originally a term connoting ‘adventure’, has turned into something much more mundane, short-sighted, and in many ways a sign of the times of diminished expectations and reduced ambition.

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-- References --

- Pirates of Silicon Valley, Burke (1999)
- Organizing venture capital: the rise and demise of American Research & Development Corporation, 1946–1973, Hsu and Kenney (2005) - https://faculty.wharton.upenn.edu/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/5.pdf
- Jobs, Stern (2013)
- Building the Venture Capital State, Klinger-Vidra (2018) - https://americanaffairsjournal.org/2018/08/building-the-venture-capital-state/
- The Progressive Era - Roots of American Bureaucracy, Myth of the 20th Century (2018) - https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2018/09/05/the-progressive-era-roots-of-american-bureaucracy/
- WeWork paid its own CEO $5.9 million to use the name 'We,' but now he's giving it back after the deal was criticized, Gilbert (2019) - https://www.businessinsider.com/wework-ceo-gives-back-millions-from-we-trademark-after-criticism-2019-9?op=1
- Electric Scooter 'Public Nuisance:' San Francisco to Regulate Startup War, Murdock (2018) - https://www.newsweek.com/electric-scooter-public-nuisance-san-francisco-regulate-sharing-startup-war-890524
- Colossus - Hoover Dam and the Making of the American Century, Myth of the 20th Century (2019) - https://myth20c.wordpress.com/2019/08/16/colossus-hoover-dam-and-the-making-of-the-american-century/
- VC: an Americans History, Nicholas (2019)