144 investments in 123 companies
0 0 reuben reuben2014-10-23 21:13:342014-10-23 21:13:34144 investments in 123 companiesBenioff interview
Arrington and Benioff talk about Salesforce’s $100 million venture fund, wearables, Benioff’s commitment to improving education in San Francisco, why his name is on the city’s new children’s hospital, his approach to politics, and Apple’s product launches.
The company has invested well more than $100 million in startups…we do seed funding, Series A, B, C, D, we invest in this thing called the cloud, we do a lot of investments in mobile, social, connected devices, we have a great group…and their returns are pretty incredible.
He says the company is very interested in founders that build on its platforms, and will take them to its customers and bring them to its shows.
Uber interview
Arrington and Kalanick talk onstage at Disrupt San Francisco about Uber’s scrappy reputation, global growth, and Plouffe’s role as campaign manager. Arrington:
A guy like you shouldn’t even have a car.
Kalanick:
I haven’t driven in a while.
Drops lawsuit
Arrington drops the suit after Allen withdraws her allegations. Both parties disclose that neither of them paid each other any money. Arrington’s lawyer, Eric George:
This is a complete vindication for Michael.
Whisper, Sequoia interview
Arrington talks with Whisper co-founder Heyward and Botha from Sequoia Capital about Whisper’s business model and impact, whether celebrity gossip counts as whistleblowing, and whether CrunchBase should be spun off from AOL. Heyward:
Whisper is all about creating a place of authenticity and a place of openness
Silicon Valley interview
Arrington talks onstage at Disrupt NY with the show’s creators, Judge and Berg, and cast members Middleditch and Miller about parody, real Silicon Valley cameos, and research for the show. Miller:
I think I saw Peter Dinklage, but it was just Tom walking around on his knees
Fred Wilson interview
Arrington interviews Union Square Ventures’s Wilson at Disrupt NY about Google’s potential for evil, uses for blockchain protocols, and the New York startup landscape. Wilson says that in 2020, the top three internet companies will be:
Google, Facebook, and one that we’ve never heard of
Arrington:
Why’s Apple gone?
Wilson
They’re too rooted to hardware…and they don’t have anything in the cloud to speak of
Hacker News may be worth $500 million
Altman says in an interview with Arrington that Hacker News could be worth $500 million if sold, but he says that it is worth more to Y Combinator than to anyone who would potentially want to buy it. He adds:
Intermediate valuations are completely made up and silly.
$25 million first close
The second CrunchFund is reported to have a first close of $25 million. AOL has renewed its investment from the initial fund, but it’s not clear if the venture capitalists who participated in the original fund plan to return. Arrington declines to comment to Fortune magazine.
Second fund
An SEC filing shows CrunchFund is in the market for a second fund. The document suggests a $40 million ceiling but CrunchFund is reported to target around $30 million.
Vanity Fair article
The magazine profiles Arrington including a Berkeley talk where he discusses women in tech, how TechCrunch has a female CEO and almost half its employees are female, how the blog started, and Allen’s sexual assault allegations against him. Arrington:
Women in my world are respected as much as men.
Zuckerberg interview
Arrington interviews Zuckerberg at TechCrunch 40:
If you take all the people in the world and all their friends, that’s the social graph…What we try to do at Facebook is model that
Arrington:
You’re trying to mirror the real world?
Zuckerberg:
Exactly.
Interview about NSA
Arrington and Conway discuss the NSA at Disrupt 2013. Arrington talks about issues like seizing encrypted data and hacking phones:
We see what is happening with the NSA, the NSA is strong-arming these companies that are part of our ecosystem…why have you sat by for six months and not done a thing to stop this?
Conway:
I absolutely agree that we have to balance national security, there was this thing called 9/11, the government’s responsibility is to protect… You have to balance that with responsibility… Obviously the events of the last 60 days with the NSAs says that there has to be a balance between national security and transparency.
He says there is a healthy debate and he is focusing on other issues – civic engagement, gun control, and immigration reform:
I’m probably not going to be the tech leader who heads that…right now immigration reform to me is probably more important
Benioff interview
Arrington and Salesforce CEO Benioff talk about the influence of Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, Salesforce’s financials, and how the cloud and social segments are supporting the enterprise software industry. Benioff:
Salesforce.com just had an incredible quarter with 30% growth, in not just the top line but in great numbers on cash flow. To see a company that is going to do more than $4 billion in revenue this year and is still growing at 30% is something in our industry that hasn’t been seen in a long time
Files defamation suit
Arrington files the suit (full text here) against Allen, his former girlfriend, after she accused him of raping and trying to kill her. It said she sought to:
[…] smear the plaintiff’s name on the Internet, to destroy his reputation, and to deter third persons from associating with him.
It alleges that Allen, who lives in San Francisco, was motivated by frustration over their ‘intermittent romantic involvement.’ The amount of damages sought isn’t specified but the figure is over $75,000.
Earns 20%-30% from over 80 investments
The fund has deployed just over half its capital, and the internal rate of return (IRR) is 20%-30%. It is reported to be in the very early stage of pre-marketing for a second fund, having reached out to just a few of its 61 limited partners, including AOL. Armstrong is due to sit down with Gallagher later in the month.
Kutcher, Oseary interview
Kutcher and OSeary talk about A-Grade, and confirm that the fund has raised money at a $100 million valuation. Kutcher:
Yeah, that’s true.
On the amount raised:
Enough.
Kutcher says they are bundling existing investments and formalizing them in the fund, and are heavily focused on social products like Airbnb and services-based companies like Zaarly.
Kutcher tells Arrington: ‘Fuck off’
Arrington and Kutcher exchange banter onstage at Disrupt NY. Arrington:
I’ve never gotten to interview you without getting told to f-ck off
Kutcher:
You always say something that deserves a good ‘Fuck off’ early on
Arrington:
My favorite movie that you’ve been in … Dude Where’s My Car was funny
Kutcher:
Fuck off
Disrupt 2013 interview
Arrington interviews Conway, Lee, and Pokorny about where the innovations are in tech.
Lee:
I would actually say in the last 12-18 months ideas are bigger, bolder, more ambitious…
Those include things like drone companies, and scientific research.
Conway:
We just in the last six months have [identified] two new target sectors to invest…education and the internet of things
He says the company is looking at ‘hardware devices communicating constantly with the web’, and says SV Angel is ‘defining’ the new sector of health informatics.
Lee:
The basic idea is if you think about the explosion of genomic medical information, all the medical data that is now being digitized…I think there’s now a chance to turn biology itself into a [tech sector]
Pokorny:
I’m still bullish on consumer innovation
Fred Wilson interview
Arrington and Wilson talk about Kevin Durant, Jim Cramer, and how and how not to pitch a startup. Arrington:
If other venture capitalists are sheep, what animal are you?
Wilson:
I may be a sheep too…We like to think we get out in front of trends but a lot of people in the venture business don’t, they sit back and wait for what becomes obvious and they jump on it.
He adds:
When people laugh at the company and say that’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard, that’s a good sign…people who are sheep in the business aren’t going to make a lot of money.