You're gonna meet some gentle people there"
sang The Mamas & the Papas back in late '60s. It remains true and it is part of the Venture Capital eco-system of the Bay Area.
In a radius of 50 miles around San Francisco, there are two outstanding universities (UC Berkeley and Stanford), 46% of the American Venture Capital (c.a. 20% of the World's VC), hundreds of IT (including HP, Apple, Dell, Adobe, 3M), bio-tech, and clean-tech companies, thousands of savvy entrepreneurs, and the list goes on. How can they survive and not kill each other?
One of the answers is the gift culture that proliferates in the Bay Area Venture Capital eco-system. A gift culture is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards (i.e. no formal quid pro quo exists). People help each other, interact, meet, share information and experiences. A business proposal may be refused by 30 funds before finding a sponsor. Therefore, one knows that maybe in the future I will be considering a project that was rejected by others or hire a professional that worked for the competition. Instead of annihilating the community, they grow together.
One of the answers is the gift culture that proliferates in the Bay Area Venture Capital eco-system. A gift culture is a society where valuable goods and services are regularly given without any explicit agreement for immediate or future rewards (i.e. no formal quid pro quo exists). People help each other, interact, meet, share information and experiences. A business proposal may be refused by 30 funds before finding a sponsor. Therefore, one knows that maybe in the future I will be considering a project that was rejected by others or hire a professional that worked for the competition. Instead of annihilating the community, they grow together.
If we want to have a successful venture environment in Europe or Latin America, we will have to learn that there is a great joy in giving.
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