From Mattermark
Observing that a company has made a sudden jump from 10 to 20 employees, or a steady climb from 5 to 50 over the course of a year, can signal an increase in revenue or traction or even an un-announced funding round. At Mattermark, we’ve built a feature that allows you to measure the historical data on the size of a company: “Introducing Historical Employee Trends for Mattermark Professional”
From the Investors
In “Funding the Right Stuff,” Ryan Sarver of Redpoint Ventures responds to the controversial WSJ piece by Christopher Mims titled, “Is Silicon Valley Investing in the Wrong Stuff?” which Danielle Morrill of Mattermark also responded to on Fox Business earlier this month.
Brad Feld of Foundry Group continues his mentorship series by setting aside one day each month for random meetings and by paying it forward in “Mentors 2/18: Expect Nothing in Return”
Heidi Roizen of Draper Fisher Jurvetson is profiled in First Round Review on the importance of ethics, team-building, and time management in “Eight Rare Gems from Heidi Roizen on Building a Fulfilling Life and Career”
Chris Arsenault of iNovia Capital surveys iNovia’s portfolio companies to discover what founders are really looking for from their investors in “Hey VCs Listen Up: Entrepreneurs are Talking”
Rob Go of NextView Ventures doubles the size of his first fund and redoubles his efforts to be a leader in seed investing in “Announcing NextView Ventures II”
Mike Collett of Promus Ventures draws a line in the sand between founder confidence and cockiness in “Hey Mr. Founder, You’re Not that Great (Respect the Competition)”
Om Malik of True Ventures reflects on Microsoft’s layoffs today and looks to professional sports teams for a real meritocracy in “It is Time to Stop Rewarding Failure”
Shahin Farshchi of Lux Capital persuades the last ridesharing skeptics in “We are Paying Too Much to Own Our Cars”
From the Operators
Tomio Geron of Exitround analyzes fundraising, M&A, and IPO activity over the past three years in “VC Investment Soars and Valuations Spike in Q2”
Brian Chesky of Airbnb explains the new logo and the direction of Airbnb in “Belong Anywhere”
Ryan Hoover of Product Hunt officially announces Product Hunt’s Y Combinator-backing in “YC + PH”
Vijay Balachandran of HappyFox looks in the mirror for his first customer in “Build What You Can Use for Yourself”
CardSpring brings payment infrastructure to Twitter in “We are Excited to Announce that Twitter is Acquiring CardSpring!”
From the Community
Genius (or, the artist formerly known as Rap Genius) annotates the proposed regulation on bitcoin and other virtual currencies by the New York Department of Financial Services in “Proposed BitLicense Regulations”
NYU Finance Professor Aswath Damodaran, whose first post on Uber’s valuation caused a stir in the tech community, responds to Bill Gurley’s rebuttal in “Possible, Plausible, and Probable: Big Markets and Networking Effects”