Why invest only in first-time entrepreneurs?
Quindlen: It’s the first-time entrepreneurs that make the most successful companies. AOL was started by a first-time entrepreneur. Cisco. Microsoft. eBay. Excite. They do take more handholding, and it is more risky. But the reason they do better is they take more risk. They don’t know how hard it’s supposed to be. Marc Andreessen was a first-time entrepreneur when he did Netscape. We want Marc Andreessen when he’s at [University of Illinois] Champaign-Urbana, in jeans and sneakers thinking about doing Mosaic, not later when he’s got an Armani suit and pitching Loudcloud at a $200 million pre-money valuation. Q: How will you have time to guide these very young companies? Proudian: We have a group of interim executives we call our SWAT team. These are a couple-dozen experienced executives who have made money. They’re too rich to work hard for four years, and too young to retire. We give them the opportunity to go in and be interim CEO, or interim V-P of engineering, for 6, or 9, or 12 mo
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