So call me UN-STAR-STRUCK. Sorry! Initially, i wanted to meet him; but after being on his show, i lost my appetite. I would like to note, that he has a lot of good knowledge, ideas, and some kind of passion for startups. But that is countered by his angry, destructive attitude. I would think that a guy that had his kind of wealth at 38, would be NICER. Instead, he’s a jerk. SAD!!

-steve

Darwinism is fine… the question is which beast is going extinct. Startups will always be around and so will angels. I think it’s an open question whether groups who’s model extracts significant fees from startups without any requirement to achieve results will continue to thrive. Certainly, the startups have to achieve results in order to survive and the market sets the threshold for those results — the market for capital and the market for their product. Similarly, angels have to achieve results with their investments or they are sunk. I don’t know what the success rate ought to be for angel groups… I think it is a complicated question and depends a lot on the specifics of the groups model, the profiles of their angels and the relative size of the fees they charge. At a minimum, I think a group should consider that metric one the most important factors that they need to drive upward and if you’re embarrassed by that number and the startup community is calling you out on it and you’re threatening law suits against folks who talk about it openly… then I think that’s as good an indicator as you need that your model is broken.

I’m less interested in the hullabaloo about who’s model is worse then others and who’s evil and who’s not then I am about helping Darwin sort it out and identify models that can succeed.

Thank you for your invitation to attend a Keiretsu meeting. I’m not in the East Bay very often but would welcome the opportunity to hear directly from Randy and others about their thoughts on this.

Bob