The Anti-Portfolio
April 22nd, 2008 by Tim Cederman-Haysom Posted in StartupsFound this great link from Hacker News – Bessemer Venture Partners’ anti-portfolio.
Everyone likes to highlight their strengths and past successes, but there’s something impressive about being able to admit mistakes, on your corporate site no less. I can only hope that the implication is that they have learned from these mistakes.
Highlights of investment opportunities passed over include:
- Apple
- eBay
- Intel
- Intuit
- PayPal
Also some refreshingly honest reasons for why they missed out, including this fantastic description of passing on Google:
Cowan’s college friend rented her garage to Sergey and Larry for their first year. In 1999 and 2000 she tried to introduce Cowan to “these two really smart Stanford students writing a search engine”. Students? A new search engine? In the most important moment ever for Bessemer’s anti-portfolio, Cowan asked her, “How can I get out of this house without going anywhere near your garage?”
You must be logged in to post a comment.