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Feb. 7, 2012 SVForum PWC

dj — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 19:00:16 +0000

On Tuesday February 7, 2012 in Palo Alto at Pillsbury Winthrop, SVForum presented the SVForum Quarterly Venture Breakfast with Pillsbury Winthrop and PricewaterhouseCoopers. The topic was “2011 The Year In Review.” Allison Leopold Tilley of Pillsbury Winthrop moderated panelists Steve Bengston of PricewaterhouseCoopers, Casper de Clercq of Norwest Venture Partners, Steve Goldberg of Venrock and Ann Winblad of Hummer Winblad. They discussed the past year and prospects for the next.

Venture capital investments went up from $23 billion in 2010 to $26 billion in 2011. Fundraising went up from $10 billion in 2010 to $12 billion in 2011. This growth is seen as unsustainable when the top sectors of cleantech, biotech, and medical devices are vulnerable to scaling and regulatory issues. Despite the IPOs of LinkedIn and Pandora, the trend toward VC backed companies going public declined from 75 in 2010 to 50 in 2011. This does not help the unemployed if over ninety percent of job creation occurs after a company has an IPO. The Facebook IPO may generate more Silicon Valley angel investing, but such investment has not generated well paying jobs in the US.

According to the US Dept of Commerce and Wall Street Journal, multinationals over the past decade have cut 2.9 million jobs in the US and moved 2.4 overseas. One result is that over 80 percent of internet growth is overseas where more than 90 percent of the children under 15 live in emerging markets. One place the population may not be growing is in China, where the workforce will peak in 2015 and become the world’s largest economy by 2017 but be surpassed in population by India in 2020. Growth in Europe is unlikely considering their continuing instability as seen in Greece.

Despite more money going in, there are fewer exits. The current situation is unsustainable.

Banner 3616 Stonework Flowers

dj — Wed, 08 Feb 2012 05:15:59 +0000

Banner 3616 Stonework Flowers. As usual, contact me for signed prints or legal permission.

Banner 2896 Tech Museum Skylight Vertical

dj — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 04:38:19 +0000

Banner 2896 Tech Museum Skylight Vertical. As usual, contact me for signed prints or legal permission.

Feb. 5, 2012 Blumbers

dj — Sun, 05 Feb 2012 16:00:16 +0000

Komen and Going

This week the Susan G. Komen for the Cure foundation announced it would stop funding breast cancer screening at Planned Parenthood clinics because it was under investigation from Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.). After the public outcry, they reversed their decision.

I have lost many friends to this disease. This brought up several points about helping people fighting catastrophic illness.

1. Rather than donate money to one non-profit to another with the loss of funds to administrative costs, why not donate directly to the organization that directly helps people?

2. Consider directly helping people you know suffering with catastrophic illness. Drive them to and from their medical treatment or grocery shopping. If at work, find a way that they can keep their jobs and health insurance.

3. Find out which politicians support ordinary people’s access to health care and vote for them. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) and his supporters have great health care. We should too.

4. Get tested at Planned Parenthood. They care about you. Rep. Cliff Stearns (R-Fla.) clearly does not.