Silicon Valley Greed

Ramblings

from the too-much dept

Joe Costello, who has always impressed me as a CEO (at both Cadence and think3) and who is one person in the valley who I can’t remember ever hearing anything bad about, has written an article for the San Jose Merc about the increasng culture of greed in Silicon Valley. This is a topic that I feel strongly about, and I agree with much of what Joe has to say. More and more I hear people wanting to start companies simply because they think they’re going to be rich. They say things like “aren’t you sick of everyone else getting rich?”. It seems fewer and fewer people are starting companies because they have a good idea, or that they love the challenge of building a company. My feeling is that many of these “greed” companies will fail (though, of course, a few will make it big) and the people involved will go on being unfulfilled. I’m not so worried about that part. Where it gets tricky is that it makes it harder for people who truly love what they’re doing to make it happen. They need to distinguish themselves from the greedy to prove that what they’re doing is for the love of building a great business that serves a real need. The best question I was ever asked in an investment pitch was “why are you doing this?” I wish more investors would ask that sort of question.