Financing innovation. Introduction
Silicon Valley, startup, IPO, Dotcom era companies. These words sound like the most wonderful music for many visitors to this resource. On this subject, filmed a lot of documentary and feature films. There is a good satirical series.
In success stories, financing issues are usually omitted. The whole process of financing is often in them like a fairy tale and sometimes even like a joke about boiled eggs and an uncle who left a legacy.
The reality, of course, is more prosaic, but it does not become less interesting. Of course, it is not much like what we are shown in films about Jobs. By the way, the mocking picture from the series Silicon Valley is a bit more like the truth, if you omit the eccentric characters trying to annoy the other venture magnates. And rewrite the role of Jared, who is actually Donald himself.
')
The beginning of the entire history of innovative financing in the form in which we now have it was laid in the second half of the 60s, when the rapid development of the semiconductor industry and information technology began, giving the world the names of Andy Grove, Ross Perot, Bill Gates and Steven Jobs.
Even faster, everything began to turn into the 90s. The peak of the economic heyday of the United States coincided with the beginning of the development of the Internet, its advancement in the consumer market, which led to the famous Dotcom economy collapse, which in turn turned out to be the end of the childhood industry and led to the formation of a full-fledged digital economy, one of whose fruits is and its audience.
The modern IT market is a well-established phenomenon and its leaders have taken their place among the flagships of the traditional industrial sectors, such as energy, engineering and retail sales.
Quite naturally, the title of the cradle of this sector of the economy is deserved by the United States, in which line financing of innovative projects originated, developed, and rose to its feet. It was the transformation of this segment of the financial sector into a full-fledged industry that led the world to the current pace of innovation in everyday life.
The venture capital industry allowed the consumer IT market to overtake even the national aerospace programs in terms of financial turnover, which the great Bradbury grumbled about before the demise, complaining that mankind had traded the landing on Mars on the iPhone.
Personally, I do not see anything reprehensible in this exchange. The harmonious development of household improvements is possible only in a free trade and business environment. Naturally, what sells better develops faster. I understand perfectly well that the modern level of penetration of information, industrial and energy technologies into everyday life “stands on the shoulders of a giant” of the American lunar program. Moreover, I expect that the consumer community, realizing the positive impact of fundamental technological breakthroughs on everyday life, will itself demand space programs from states that will lead to the colonization of the Moon, landing on Mars and manned expeditions to the moons of Jupiter. And seeing the success of Elon Mask in the commercial space program I suspect that some of these remarkable events will be carried out with partial, and even with full venture capital funding from non-state sources.
The success stories of Intel, Microsoft and Apple were forged not only and not so much in research laboratories, programmers' workplaces and the minds of visionaries at the head of these companies. Without people in suits in small stripes, ties and always black shoes, the most courageous plans of visionaries and sleepless nights of their team members could never reach the consumer.
Memoirs of icons rarely concern the financial details of the decisions that led to their success. Whereas the flesh, at least for me, may lie there, and not in the stories of head-on collisions with the members of the board or the board of directors.
It's one thing when someone smart brings to the bankers a trial plan for selling a used motorcycle business or selling quail eggs. In essence, these things are quite mundane, and people who make decisions about granting a loan more or less understand what the applicant is saying and can present their understanding in some figures, from which they start in their own assessment of the risks and prospects of such enterprises. Another thing is when someone in a black turtleneck and sandals speaks about the production of personal computers, and at that time for business such a phrase sounded like a personal tram. It is not surprising that people who are willing to invest unbelievable money or, at least, be responsible for their investment in seemingly absurd ideas at first, sharply stood out from the slim gray mass of bankers, brokers and financial asset managers.
For me personally, who gave the stock market 15 years of his life, on closer scrutiny, the venture capitalist group seemed much more desperate and reckless than the “investment bankerschina”, whose morals are quite grotesquely depicted in “The Wolf of Wall Street” by Di Caprio. I saw serious and intelligent people, whose courage took not the fact that the city, but the whole world. The very world in which we live and the results of whose decisions are the subject of discussion on this resource.
With such an ambiguous post, which I hope will create some boiling up in the community, I want to start a series of stories about how American geeks and / or visionaries find the means to realize their bold ideas, through what circles of hell they are carried out by someone’s hand, and by whom and behind the ear are not so kind and generous, as they are shown in popular culture, the bigwigs of venture business of all calibers.
In success stories, financing issues are usually omitted. The whole process of financing is often in them like a fairy tale and sometimes even like a joke about boiled eggs and an uncle who left a legacy.
The reality, of course, is more prosaic, but it does not become less interesting. Of course, it is not much like what we are shown in films about Jobs. By the way, the mocking picture from the series Silicon Valley is a bit more like the truth, if you omit the eccentric characters trying to annoy the other venture magnates. And rewrite the role of Jared, who is actually Donald himself.
')
The beginning of the entire history of innovative financing in the form in which we now have it was laid in the second half of the 60s, when the rapid development of the semiconductor industry and information technology began, giving the world the names of Andy Grove, Ross Perot, Bill Gates and Steven Jobs.
Even faster, everything began to turn into the 90s. The peak of the economic heyday of the United States coincided with the beginning of the development of the Internet, its advancement in the consumer market, which led to the famous Dotcom economy collapse, which in turn turned out to be the end of the childhood industry and led to the formation of a full-fledged digital economy, one of whose fruits is and its audience.
The modern IT market is a well-established phenomenon and its leaders have taken their place among the flagships of the traditional industrial sectors, such as energy, engineering and retail sales.
Quite naturally, the title of the cradle of this sector of the economy is deserved by the United States, in which line financing of innovative projects originated, developed, and rose to its feet. It was the transformation of this segment of the financial sector into a full-fledged industry that led the world to the current pace of innovation in everyday life.
The venture capital industry allowed the consumer IT market to overtake even the national aerospace programs in terms of financial turnover, which the great Bradbury grumbled about before the demise, complaining that mankind had traded the landing on Mars on the iPhone.
Personally, I do not see anything reprehensible in this exchange. The harmonious development of household improvements is possible only in a free trade and business environment. Naturally, what sells better develops faster. I understand perfectly well that the modern level of penetration of information, industrial and energy technologies into everyday life “stands on the shoulders of a giant” of the American lunar program. Moreover, I expect that the consumer community, realizing the positive impact of fundamental technological breakthroughs on everyday life, will itself demand space programs from states that will lead to the colonization of the Moon, landing on Mars and manned expeditions to the moons of Jupiter. And seeing the success of Elon Mask in the commercial space program I suspect that some of these remarkable events will be carried out with partial, and even with full venture capital funding from non-state sources.
The success stories of Intel, Microsoft and Apple were forged not only and not so much in research laboratories, programmers' workplaces and the minds of visionaries at the head of these companies. Without people in suits in small stripes, ties and always black shoes, the most courageous plans of visionaries and sleepless nights of their team members could never reach the consumer.
Memoirs of icons rarely concern the financial details of the decisions that led to their success. Whereas the flesh, at least for me, may lie there, and not in the stories of head-on collisions with the members of the board or the board of directors.
It's one thing when someone smart brings to the bankers a trial plan for selling a used motorcycle business or selling quail eggs. In essence, these things are quite mundane, and people who make decisions about granting a loan more or less understand what the applicant is saying and can present their understanding in some figures, from which they start in their own assessment of the risks and prospects of such enterprises. Another thing is when someone in a black turtleneck and sandals speaks about the production of personal computers, and at that time for business such a phrase sounded like a personal tram. It is not surprising that people who are willing to invest unbelievable money or, at least, be responsible for their investment in seemingly absurd ideas at first, sharply stood out from the slim gray mass of bankers, brokers and financial asset managers.
For me personally, who gave the stock market 15 years of his life, on closer scrutiny, the venture capitalist group seemed much more desperate and reckless than the “investment bankerschina”, whose morals are quite grotesquely depicted in “The Wolf of Wall Street” by Di Caprio. I saw serious and intelligent people, whose courage took not the fact that the city, but the whole world. The very world in which we live and the results of whose decisions are the subject of discussion on this resource.
With such an ambiguous post, which I hope will create some boiling up in the community, I want to start a series of stories about how American geeks and / or visionaries find the means to realize their bold ideas, through what circles of hell they are carried out by someone’s hand, and by whom and behind the ear are not so kind and generous, as they are shown in popular culture, the bigwigs of venture business of all calibers.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/231285/
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