I was asked by the excellent folks at Grind, a co-working space near our offices, to give a talk in their monthly #Rethink breakfast talk series. I am drawn to the idea of a #rethink hashtag. It's a good mental exercise. So I said I would do the talk and that I'd like to #rethink the VC industry.
I gave the talk yesterday and William storified it. And there was some blog coverage of the talk yesterday. I started out the talk by stating that I was "thinking outloud in realtime and that my remarks should be taken as such".
At some point yesterday I see the words "death of the VC business" in my twitter stream with my name attached to it.
Fred Wilson and the death of venture capital. A good read. > forbes.com/sites/jjcolao/…
— Martin Bryant (@MartinSFP) May 8, 2012
I can assure you I never said anything about the "death of the venture capital business" in my talk. The venture capital business is not dying.
My talk was a rumination on the forces at work on the venture capital business today and the changes that may be required to remain relevant and profitable in this new world. The talk was provocative and "out there" but it was not a eulogy.
I expect that Grind will post the talk at some point and everyone can come to their own conclusions.
This post is a plea to bloggers and journalists not to use the word "death" casually. It is a big word, a strong word, it means something real and devastating. And it is a word I would not use lightly.
