XPost: sci.electronics.design, comp.dsp   
   From: invalid@invalid.invalid   
      
   Robert Baer wrote:   
   > Joerg wrote:   
   >> Robert Baer wrote:   
   >>> Le Chaud Lapin wrote:   
      
   [...]   
      
   >>   
   >>>> I had the conversation with a VC in New York City this past January   
   >>>> who had invested $5US million in a company doing IPTV. The company was   
   >>>> stuggling badly, near bankruptcy, and I had learned of it through one   
   >>>> of my ex-students who introduced them to me for a consulting project   
   >>>> that they wanted completed. It was difficult trying to figure out what   
   >>>> they wanted, because the person in charge of the project could barely   
   >>>> tell me what he wanted. He was polite, professionally, but   
   >>>> frighteningly ignorant. It took about 12 emails back and forth to   
   >>>> realize that the reasson I was having so much trouble understanding   
   >>>> him was because he did not understand himself. When I finally realized   
   >>>> what the other all goal was, It took all of 5 minutes of poking around   
   >>>> to realize that:   
   >>>>   
   >>>> 1. With the exception of my ex-student and another engineer, the   
   >>>> technical depth within the company was too low for them to be doing   
   >>>> what it was they are doing [data compression - they had stolen a   
   >>>> compressor from another company, essentially].   
   >>>> 2. someone in company had grossly distorted the truth about capability   
   >>>> of product (flat out lied in fact) to customers.   
   >>>> 3. The VC who invested the $5 million didn't have a clue.   
   >>   
   >>   
   >> That is a classical mistake. I will never understand this but VCs and   
   >> corporations are willing to spend six figures per case on legal   
   >> counsel but they balk at retaining a few engineering consultants for   
   >> less money to check things over. Naturally, that leads to tons of   
   >> failed investments. The worst one I've witnessed: I wrote a proposal   
   >> to a struggling VC-funded firm about how I and a FPGA/CPLD engineer   
   >> could help them pull through. This is because I saw quite clearly   
   >> where they were heading down the wrong path and how we could fix   
   >> things. They pondered it and then turned us down. Subsequently the   
   >> whole business went belly-up. And I knew it would :-(   
   > * Next time, short as much of the stock as you possibly can!   
   >   
      
   No stocks. This was 100% VC- and government-owned (because they also   
   plowed funding into it via grants). All up in smoke now :-(   
      
   --   
   Regards, Joerg   
      
   http://www.analogconsultants.com/   
      
   "gmail" domain blocked because of excessive spam.   
   Use another domain or send PM.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)