Comments on: The Midas List — deconstructed

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By: Musical chairs in Silicon Valley’s venture world: Theis, Brown, Lisbonne, Marshall » VentureBeat

Thu, 08 May 2008 15:02:47 +0000

[...] companies to invest in, including due diligence. Brown, you’ll recall, is the reporter who puts together the Forbes Midas list of the top 100 investors (see most recent Midas List). Now the question is, who takes over her role? Who will draw the ire [...]

By: January 28, 2008 | TechTV Update

January 28, 2008 | TechTV Update — Mon, 31 Mar 2008 23:02:00 +0000

[...] bankers qualify as being venture capitalists. The peculiar methodology is kind of explained here and here. Here they are – the books that make you dumb (and the ones that make you smart) Hackers [...]

By: January 28, 2008 | TechBurgh

January 28, 2008 | TechBurgh — Thu, 31 Jan 2008 00:50:21 +0000

[...] bankers qualify as being venture capitalists. The peculiar methodology is kind of explained here and [...]

By: Max Bleyleben

Max Bleyleben — Tue, 29 Jan 2008 12:21:43 +0000

This approach of ignoring the in-price of investments makes no sense. All the ranking tells you, based on this methodology, is who are the biggest over-payers in the market. Interesting, but their names are hardly surprising to any VC who is active in the market. And they aren’t likely to correspond very closely to those VCs that have delivered the greatest returns to their investors, which is the only metric that counts at the end of the day.

By: Anthony Kuhn

Anthony Kuhn — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 23:45:27 +0000

Matt:

Good stuff! I like the inclusion of related bankers and lawyers in the mix and also interesting to see those not picked duking it out for inclusion. Seems a bit petty, actually. I linked to this post in my blog for the Innovators-Network as it’s topical and of interest to my readers.

Continued wishes for success,

Anthony Kuhn

By: The Forbes Midas List is out. Let the gloating and grumbling begin « Adventure Capitalist

Mon, 28 Jan 2008 19:53:16 +0000

[...] also conducted an interview a day or so following with VentureBeat’s Matt Marshall, available here. My principal criticism, the presence of bankers, lawyers and other ’service [...]

By: Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson — Mon, 28 Jan 2008 03:12:59 +0000

I agree with Cognoscenti. Midas transformed into higher quality and higher value what was lower quality and lower value. There are entrepreneurs of course trying to build something where there was nothing and some of them succeed, a few with that Midas Touch (and even fewer repeatedly.) There are a few venture investors that work with the entrepreneur and portfolio company and help in that transformation to higher value. Speak with any of the entrepreneurs, executives, board members and even industry colleagues that have worked with Spreng, Wei, Orsak and you’ll find no track record of the Midas Touch and plenty of evidence for the Sadim (reverse of Midas) Touch where they take something that is valuable and arguably golden and turn it into something that is less valuable and lead.
Mr Marshall, perhaps you need to start a Sadim List to highlight the existence and prominence of the reverse Midas Touch process in the Valley. Investing in, esp investing early in, serving on the board of, fighting with the entrepreneur(s), replacing executives with handpicked others and driving companies into the ground…are all visible, traceable, activities that qualify one for the list, and the bigger (more frequent) the screwups the higher in the list…

By: Cognoscenti

Cognoscenti — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 23:25:49 +0000

Midas was famous for turning to gold what was not. If the Midas List comprises of those with that golden touch it ought to focus on those that, through their traceable contribution and efforts, turned into gold what was lead or silver.

Mr Grimes and other bankers don’t fit that criteria as they are essentially middlemen looking at a preselected list of companies with growing revenues/profits and getting the Street to buy into the story. They don’t play a role of turning into gold what was lead…

There are some entrepreneurs and venture investors that have a track record of maximizing value from what’s on hand. Some are in that Midas List and kudos to Ms Brown and her team for recgnizing and including them. There are many however that never added value to their investments, have a track record of turning gold into lead and they ought never to have been included in the list. Examples from the past are Dave Spreng, Mike Orsak, Ken Virnig, James Wei and the current list contains many equivalents.

Wei and Orsak touted Ciena and NVidia as examples of their successful investments which catapulted them then into the Midas List of 2000 and a couple other years. Due diligence would have revealed they came into Ciena and NVidia as late investors, did not serve on the board, did not help in executive recruiting, going public, or anything remotely visible or quantifiable. On what basis then were they on the Midas List? Why not admit now they were on the list through an error and the error has now been corrected and they no longer belong there…?

By: Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:32:47 +0000

What I meant to say in my last comment was:
“Also, it’s public information that very few of the companies Wei and Orsak invested in went public or were acquired and each such company’s “success” canNOT be attributed to anything but Wei’s or Orsak’s “early investment, introduction to acquirer,…”

By: Matt Johnson

Matt Johnson — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 20:30:05 +0000

Did anyone else notice the response to the question about James Wei and Mike Orsak was a non-response?

Also, it’s public information that very few of the companies they invested in went public or were acquired and each such company’s “success” can be attributed to Wei’s or Orsak’s “early investment, introduction to acquirer, hands-on recruiting of the CEO/leadership team,” etc. There is a higher number of companies where their involvement led to disaster for the companies and their employees and other shareholders.
A good PR agency, $$$, and such matter as much as the methodology Brown describes.

By: Nik

Nik — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 02:05:28 +0000

Some parts of my previous comment got eaten up…
——–
I am sorry thier “improvement” (response to Q2, see excerpt below) in ranking makes little sense…

Returns need to include how much of the company the investor got. For $2m, investors in StumbleUpon did not 100% of the equity and therefore did not get a 37 times return. So how can you compare apples to oranges.

Taking this further, Microsoft will look like a genius for thier $200+ investment in facebook for 10 times return when in reality they would have probably had a

By: Nik

Nik — Sun, 27 Jan 2008 02:03:31 +0000

I am sorry thier “improvement” (response to Q2, see excerpt below) in ranking makes little sense…

Taking this further, Microsoft will look like a genius for thier $200+ investment in facebook for 10 times return when in reality they would have probably had a

By: Forbes publie la liste Midas des 100 “top tech deal makers” « (French)TechConnection

Sun, 27 Jan 2008 00:04:30 +0000

[...] liste a évidemment ces limites et si vous vous interrogez sur la méthodologie, l’interview de la journaliste Erica Brown, responsable de la liste, par VentureBeat apporte beaucoup de [...]