一个有道德勇气的blogger

bulaohu

今天看到这个feed，真是吓了一跳。再想想方舟子在国内被人差点弄死的经历，有些感慨。发出来给有耐心读大段英文的同学们看看到底发生了什么事。

http://techcrunch.com/2010/09/21/so-a-blogger-walks-into-a-bar


So a blogger walks into a bar...

Yesterday I was tipped off about a “secret meeting” between a group of “Super Angels” being held at Bin 38, a restaurant and bar in San Francisco. “Do not come, you will not be welcome,” I was told.

So I did what any self respecting blogger would do – I drove over to Bin 38, parked my car and walked in.

in the back of the restaurant in a private room was a long oval table. Sitting around the table, Godfather style, were ten or so of the highest profile angel investors in Silicon Valley. These investors, known as “super angels” because they have mostly moved on to launch small venture funds of their own, are all friends of mine. I knew each person in the room very, very well.

I certainly didn’t think anything was amiss and I expected a friendly hello and an invitation to sit down for a drink or two before being shooed off while they talked about whatever they thought should be kept off record. But instead it went something like this:

Me: Hey!
Person who was talking: oh, oh no.
Me: Hi. I heard you guys were here and I wanted to stop by and say hi.
Them: dead silence.
Me: so….
Them: Deafening silence.
Me: This is usually where you guys say “sit down, have a drink.”
Them: not one sound
Me: This is awkward. I guess I’ll be leaving now.

I’ve never seen a more guilty looking group of people. But that alone isn’t that big of a deal. Lively conversations often die quickly when I arrive, and I’ve learned not to take it personally. But I did sniff around a little afterwards, and have spoken to three people who were at that meeting. And that’s where things got interesting.

This group of investors, which together account for nearly 100% of early stage startup deals in Silicon Valley, have been meeting regularly to compare notes. Early on it was mostly to complain about a variety of things. But the conversation has evolved to the point where these super angels are actually colluding (and I don’t use that word lightly) to solve a number of problems, say multiple sources who are part of the group and were at the dinner. According to these souces, the ongoing agenda includes:

Complaints about Y Combinator’s growing power, and how to counteract competitiveness in Y Combinator deals
Complaints about rising deal valuations and they can act as a group to reduce those valuations
How the group can act together to keep traditional venture capitalists out of deals entirely
How the group can act together to keep out new angel investors invading the market and driving up valuations.
More mundane things, like agreeing as a group not to accept convertible notes in deals (an entrepreneur-friendly type of deal).
One source has also said that there is a wiki of some sort that the group has that explicitly talks about how the group should act as one to keep deal valuations down.
At least two people attending were extremely uneasy about the meetings, and have said that they are only there to gather information, not participate.

So what’s wrong with this?

Collusion and price fixing, that’s what. It is absolutely unlawful for competitors to act together to keep other competitors out of the market, or to discuss ways to keep prices under control. And that appears to be exactly what this group is doing.

This isn’t minor league stuff. We’re talking about federal crimes and civil prosecutions if in fact that’s what they’re doing. I had a quick call with an attorney this morning, and he confirmed that these types of meetings are exactly what these laws were designed to prevent.

I’m not going to say who was at the meeting since at least a couple of the attendees are saying they were extremely uncomfortable with the direction the conversation was going. But like I said, it included just about every major angel investor in Silicon Valley.

On a side note, this is a difficult post to write, because I call nearly every person in that room a friend. But these actions are so completely inappropriate it has to be called out.

黑山老妖

Very brave and honorable man who will have ten less friends.

bulaohu

原帖由 黑山老妖 于 2010-9-22 17:08 发表
Very brave and honorable man who will have ten less friends.

ya, i guess. I'm too old to move to Silicon Valley and found a startup now, but I'd still rather see that Silicon Valley remains genuine and true to its technological root, rather than being controlled by a bunch of scum bags.

JuJu

Wow, you really do need to have a lot of guts to write something like this. I was wondering if this will pull the trigger on any kind of investigation.

But I do not know the background of this Michael Arrington guy at all, not sure if what he says is creditable...

coolioo

Big deal?? I reckon this sort of meeting is not uncommon...

bulaohu

原帖由 coolioo 于 2010-9-22 20:46 发表
Big deal?? I reckon this sort of meeting is not uncommon...

That's right, but my point is that someone actually wrote about this and publish on TechCrunch is a big deal indeed.

小马识途

我不太相信，这么多人参与，主事的就不怕有人泄密？阴谋一般只能很少人才行。

choco2468

Its silly to write things like that on his blog.
1. It does not benefit him
2. It could hurt his friend
if it doesn't do any good to him or his friend, why do it?
As a matter of fact, most of the market are controlled by a small group of people, like it or not, its called reality.

乱码

肯定是分脏不均，上来抱怨的。

这哥们也貌似圈中大腕级人物，不然不会跟谁都这么熟，能混到这个级别的再去道貌岸然的谈仁义道德，就有点可笑了。

bulaohu

刚刚从garysu的帖子里看到，Michael Arrington原来是TechCrunch的founder

LS两位的想法我可以理解，但是我觉得如果你把TechCrunch看作是一个专注于IT业的新闻媒体的话，报道和揭露这样的事情是媒体的道德良心所在。我也知道这个世界上绝大多数时候是钱说了算，但黑白之间的界限总还是有的，我已经不信教了，如果不相信点正义和良心之类的玩意儿，恐怕就完全野兽化了，所以偶尔天真一下，请大家谅解。

cdfei

为啥不信教了呢？

乱码

原帖由 bulaohu 于 2010-9-23 10:34 发表
刚刚从garysu的帖子里看到，Michael Arrington原来是TechCrunch的founder

LS两位的想法我可以理解，但是我觉得如果你把TechCrunch看作是一个专注于IT业的新闻媒体的话，报道和揭露这样的事情是媒体的道德良心所在。我也知 ...

恭喜斑竹还童心未泯哈~~

小马识途

　　新浪科技讯 北京时间9月22日下午消息，据国外媒体报道，一批硅谷著名天使投资人周二在旧金山的Bin 38餐厅举行秘密会议，商讨如何排挤竞争对手，以及如何降低创业企业的估值。

　　据美国科技博客TechCrunch创始人迈克尔·阿灵顿(Michael Arrington)介绍，消息人士曾经警告他，如果他造访该会议，不会受到欢迎，但是阿灵顿还是满怀自信地驱车前往Bin 38餐厅。

　　本次会议的投资人主要是“超级天使”(Super Angel)，他们在Bin 38餐厅后面的一个单间里举行会议，单间里有一张很长的椭圆桌。阿灵顿表示，与会的大概有十几个硅谷最著名的天使投资人，而之所以称他们是“超级天使”，因为他们大都已经推出了自己的小型风险投资基金。由于阿灵顿与所有人都非常熟悉，所以就决定主动跟他们打招呼。

　　阿灵顿原本以为这些人会热情款待他，但结果却出人意料。当阿灵顿出现在他们面前，并主动问好时，在场的所有人都鸦雀无声，之前的所有谈话也都戛然而止。阿灵顿最终也只能没趣地离开。

　　据悉，当天的与会人员几乎参与了所有硅谷创业企业的早期投资。而消息人士表示，这些人会定时相互交换信息，甚至共谋解决一些问题。

　　消息人士透露，这次会议所讨论的内容如下：

　　- 抱怨孵化器Y Combinator日益增强的势力，以及如何抵制Y Combinator在交易中的竞争力。

　　- 抱怨日益增长的交易估值以及如何以团体形式降低估值。

　　- 该团体如何共同排挤传统的风险投资企业。

　　- 该团体如何共同排挤那些推动估值增加的新天使投资人。

　　- 与会人士以团体形式同意不接受交易中的可转换债券(这是一种对企业家有利的交易方式)。

　　- 一名消息还表示，该团体还制订了许多方法，详尽讨论了如何降低交易估值。

　　至少有两名参与这类会议的人对会议氛围不满，但他们表示，之所以参与会议，主要为了搜集信息。

　　阿灵顿认为，这种行为涉嫌共谋和操纵价格。而一批竞争者联合起来排挤其他竞争者，或者降低定价的做法显然也是违法的。他表示，倘若上述信息属实，那么这些天使投资人便触犯了法律。而一名律师听闻此事后也表示，这种行为的确违法。

　　阿灵顿并未透露与会成员的具体名单，只是表示，其中包括硅谷几乎所有的大牌天使投资人。

JuJu

bulaohu 可能也会有兴趣读读这本书的: "Confessions of a Venture Capitalist: Inside the High-Stakes World of Start-up Financing", 我刚买了一本还没有收到书.

bulaohu

原帖由 JuJu 于 2010-9-24 21:31 发表
bulaohu 可能也会有兴趣读读这本书的: "Confessions of a Venture Capitalist: Inside the High-Stakes World of Start-up Financing", 我刚买了一本还没有收到书.

我借你的看好不好

或者你看完了拍卖吧，我一定买

JuJu

那你就等着吧, 我看完就归你好了

不会游泳的鱼

有啥大不了的，又不是密谋暗杀奥巴马