Re: Start Up the Risk-Takers

[David Farber <dave () farber net>]

Begin forwarded message:

From: "C. Titus Brown" <ctb () msu edu>
Date: February 24, 2009 10:20:50 AM EST
To: David Farber <dave () farber net>
Subject: Re: [IP] Start Up the Risk-Takers
Reply-To: titus () idyll org

(for IP if you wish)

On Mon, Feb 23, 2009 at 03:49:38PM -0500, David Farber wrote:
-> Begin forwarded message:
->
-> February 22, 2009
-> Op-Ed Columnist
-> Start Up the Risk-Takers
-> By THOMAS L. FRIEDMAN
-> <http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/22/opinion/22friedman.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&pagewanted=all

[ ... ]

-> Call up the top 20 venture capital firms in America, which are short
-> of cash today because their partners ? university endowments and
-> pension funds ? are tapped out, and make them this offer: The U.S.
-> Treasury will give you each up to $1 billion to fund the best venture
-> capital ideas that have come your way. If they go bust, we all lose.
-> If any of them turns out to be the next Microsoft or Intel, taxpayers
-> will give you 20 percent of the investors? upside and keep 80 percent
-> for themselves.

This is an interesting kind of idea, and reminds me of a thought I'd had
back when this financial crisis started to cascade (sometime between May
and August of last year) -- is there a VC fund for people without big
pots of money?  I'm thinking of something like Kiva, but for VC.  If I
could contribute (say) $5000 to such a fund, along with 2000 other
people, that could bankroll a few startups; it might be a "fun" way to
participate in VC funding.

Does anything like this exist?

cheers,
--titus
--
C. Titus Brown, ctb () msu edu




-------------------------------------------
Archives: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/247/=now
RSS Feed: https://www.listbox.com/member/archive/rss/247/
Powered by Listbox: http://www.listbox.com