Fred Wilson Quotes

Certainly anything that is news or opinion needs to be free on the Web, because the Web is this very fluid medium that is very much driven by links and the flow of visitors through a discussion via links.

The fact is that the amount of money startups raise in their seed and Series A rounds is inversely correlated with success

The Internet is a computing platform built on top of core technology. Applied technology is what gets built on top of that: It's Web services.

If you have an idea that you can't get out of your head, do a startup. Otherwise join a startup.

When people laugh at a company or say, 'This is the stupidest thing I have ever heard,' you are listening.

Not only do you have to put yourself in harms way in service of your country, you have to leave your families at home. It is a great sacrifice.

I'm really interested in the intersection between reputation, identity, and knowledge.

Startups are rapidly changing systems. If you use an annual review cycle, you aren't getting feedback at the same pace that you need to adapt and change the business.

My venture investing career has three phases, all roughly 6-8 years long. The first, at Euclid, was software to Internet. The second, at Flatiron, was Internet to bubble. And the third, at USV, has been web 2 to mobile. I have always used a new firm to denote a new investment phase for me. Throw away the old. Start with the new.

When my dad was in Vietnam, we lost a parent for a year. Thank God we didn't lose a parent for good.

Most adults I know start their Internet session at Google, and most kids I know start their Internet session at either Facebook or MySpace.

I believe Android will be stronger in the developing world than it is in the developed world.

Yahoo is free, it's fast and it's Web-centric. AOL is slow, it costs money and requires proprietary software.

Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.

One of the great things about young entrepreneurs is that they don't know that something can't be done. So they try something that's so audacious and usually end up pulling it off.

I don't like to talk about myself. I like to talk about stuff that's happening, stuff that's going to happen, and the people who are going to make it happen.

Early in a startup, product decisions should be hunch driven. Later on, product decisions should be data driven.

Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are all 'User First, Brands Second' services. The brands are all over these services now. But for the most part, these services didn't do much to bring them. The engaged users did.

Money is information, like bits.

The strategy of Tumblr is very elegant.. The atomic unit of user experience is the same as the ads.

To see things differently requires you to be wired a little differently.

I think 'crazy' is a compliment. I think you make money with people who are crazy.

Facebook is not an unstoppable juggernaut. There are a lot of other things people can do on the web.

I use beauty as a way of helping people to receive difficult or upsetting ideas. The topical issues are merely a vehicle for making one aware of one's own perceptual shift-which is the real thrill.

New York's niche is content, and content is becoming more valuable. Just think about what is more valuable: MTV or the cable system that you use to get MTV? Howard Stern or the radio station you use to listen to him? Ultimately, technology becomes a commodity, and content - real, true branded content - becomes more valuable.

Blog-based businesses have lower cost structures and are more 'authentic,' and as a result are drawing larger shares of ad budgets.

The most common way customer financing is done is you sell the customer on the product before you've built it or before you've finished it. The customer puts up the money to build the product or finish the product and becomes your first customer. Usually the customer simply wants the product and nothing more.

Politics and government have been a terrible place to invest; education has been a terrible place to invest, but that is because the entrenched interests make it a terrible place to invest. The way you invest in those sectors is you go against the entrenched interests; you try and disrupt the entrenched interests, not to service them.

Foursquare's adoption of a game dynamic when it launched is a particularly clever implementation of a social hook.

Given New York City's cultural diversity, it has always attracted creative people.

Skyping with your spouse works well enough, but apparently it is hard to get the kids to hang out on Skype for long.

It's not easy for an entrepreneur to find the time to blog. But for those who do it, it is a great tool to communicate with the various stakeholders in their business and build a reputation for thought leadership.

Board meetings should not be for the benefit of the board. They should be for the benefit of the CEO and the senior team.

Ideas that most people derided as ridiculous have produced the best outcomes. Don't do the obvious thing.

Investing in management means building communication systems, business processes, feedback, and routines that let you scale the business and team as efficiently as possible.

You simply can't be tentative in a startup. You have to go for it at every chance you get. And if the leader of the organization is anxious, his or her fear pervades the organization. Everything comes from the top in a company. So if you are starting a company or building one, face your fears and move past them. It's critically important to your company.

Equity capital is expensive. Every time you do a raise, you dilute.

Customers are a great way to finance a business for many reasons. First, customer financing is typically non dilutive. They want something from you other than equity in your business. Customers also help you fit your product to the market. And customers will help debug and improve the quality of the product.

Games are the most social of all things on the web.

Don't try to solve the entire problem on day one.

Building product is not about having a large team to manage. It is about having a small team with the right people on it.

I generally blog between 5:30 A.M. and 7 A.M. I will from time to time add something during the day, but for the most part blogging is an early morning activity for me.

I'm a free speech bigot. I don't like censorship; I just don't think it's a good thing.

Not acknowledging that beauty is complex-that's the problem. I enjoy making it complex for people, because that's my world.

Start-ups should be hunch-driven early on and data-driven as they scale.

The entire world is now a rival to Silicon Valley. No country, state, region, nor city has a lock on innovation in technology anymore.

I'm not saying M.B.A.s can't be great entrepreneurs. They can. But you don't need a degree to figure out it's costing you $5,000 per month to run your business, so you need $30,000 to keep it going for six more months.

People already love to play casual games. But when you take a casual game and stick it inside a social network, it becomes way more exciting.

I get everything that satisfies my soul from bringing together objects that are in the world, manipulating them, working with spatial arrangements, and having things presented in the way I want to see them.

So many folks in the venture capital business are sheep that just want to follow the herd. They are momentum investors purchasing highly illiquid investments. That is a recipe for disaster.

When I see people laughing at ideas and companies we have backed, I smile. It means we are going to make a lot of money on that investment.