Hobnobbing and politics with the National Venture Capital Association

I just got home from the annual meeting of the National Venture Capital Association, which was a fun experience. This may sound a little weird (especially since I’m not looking to get funding for a startup anytime soon), but it was actually kind of exciting to be in a conference room full of venture capitalists. They are, after all, the heart of what we cover at VentureBeat, but until now I’ve only been able to meet a few of them. Even better, I got to pick some of their brains.

The meeting’s highlight was watching famed venture capitalists John Doerr and Michael Moritz interview each other, but there were other events of interest. In this mobile post, I summarize some of the discussion on policy issues relevant to VCs (the short version — significant legislation is unlikely to pass this year) and talk about my general impressions of the conference.

Note: I mention the carried interest tax, but don’t go into much detail so as not to bore people to death. Those of you who are interested can read more at the NVCA’s website, as well as our article about why we support the tax.

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About the Author, Anthony Ha

Anthony is VentureBeat's assistant editor, as well as its reporter on enterprise technology, cloud computing, and tech policy. Before joining VentureBeat in 2008, Anthony worked at the Hollister Free Lance, where he won awards from the California Newspaper Publishers Association for breaking news coverage and writing. He attended Stanford University and now lives in San Francisco. Reach him at anthony@venturebeat.com. You can also follow Anthony on Twitter.

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    As a long-time marketing professional who has worked with numerous VC firms, I was also at the NVCA conference. I got the permission of the NVCA to record the interview for my show Marketing Voices that posts on ITUNES and PodTech.net. Here's the link to the recording of the Doerr, Moritz interview. It really is a fun interview to hear given the two titans and their competitive positions.

    <http://www.marketingvoices.com/1334/john-doerr-...>
  • It would be interesting to review some of the hot business plans back in 1973.
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