Fred Wilson, the hip VC blogger
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We caught up with Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist with Union Square Ventures (see bio, scroll down) who writes A VC, one of the more engaging venture capital blogs out there. Fred provides an entertaining discussion of the technology landscape, venture capital issues and music recommendations. It is the most-read VC blog, excepting perhaps Guy Kawasaki’s, which covers more general venture capital issues.
SiliconBeat: What time of day do you blog?
Fred: I generally blog between 5:30am and 7am. I will from time to time add something during the day, but for the most part blogging is an early morning activity for me.
SiliconBeat: Does it make you feel tired later in the day at your day job, and if so, how do you handle that fatigue?
Fred: I’ve been getting up early ever since I had kids. I’ve just replaced email time with blogging time. I do get a bit tired mid/late afternoon so Charlie and I usually make a Jamba Juice run at that time.
SiliconBeat: How do you explain to investors in your firm that the blog is a net positive for them?
Fred: I’ve been blogging for longer than Union Square Ventures has been in business and I was actively blogging throughout the entire fundraising process (but not blogging about the fundraising process – the lawyers made sure of that). So the LPs have known about my blogging before they made a commitment to our fund. That said, we have talked about blogging with our LPs as we also have an active Union Square Ventures blog at www.unionsquareventures.com where Brad and I both post. We believe it serves a number of important functions, including getting the word out about what we are interested in which brings deals in and also acts as a filter on deals we wouldn’t be interested in. It also raises the profile of our firm which is generally a good thing. And we can help our portfolio companies get the word out about their activities. And I also think it makes us more approachable. Most entrepreneurs have a good sense of what they are walking into when the come to our office and that’s great.
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About the Author, Matt Marshall
Matt launched VentureBeat in September of 2006, with the realization that no one else was covering the entrepreneurial and tech innovation scene with the velocity or depth that he was. Prior to founding VentureBeat, he covered venture capital for the San Jose Mercury News from 2001 to 2006. In 2002, Matt was awarded "Journalist of the Year" by the Northern California Society of Professional Journalists. Prior to working at the Merc, he was a correspondent for the Wall Street Journal in Bonn, Germany from 1995 to 1998, and a writer for the Washington Post in 1994. Matt holds a PhD in Government and an MA in German and European Studies from Georgetown University. In addition to VentureBeat, Matt is also the Executive Producer of DEMO, the leading launchpad event for emerging technologies.
