Fred Wilson Quotes

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

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

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

Markets come and go. Good business don't.

The companies that do the best job on managing a user's privacy will be the companies that ultimately are the most successful.

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

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

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.

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

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

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

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

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

Venture capitalists are professional money managers. We are provided capital to invest as long as we can return it to our investors with a strong return in a reasonable amount of time. A strong return is three times cash on cash. A reasonable amount of time is ten years max.

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.

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.

Money is information, like bits.

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.

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

The more entrepreneurs in the world that are getting their ideas financed, the more great companies there are going to be that we can all invest in.

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

We need new medical approaches to preventing and/or curing disease. We need new scientific approaches to generating, storing, and being more efficient with energy. Maybe we need more space exploration. Maybe we need more undersea exploration.

Many artists stick to making and hire a manager to focus on their business. Artists that build websites and mobile apps can do that, too.

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

Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.

Being an entrepreneur is hard. Having supportive and caring investors helps.

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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

If you want to create something great and do it faster than the competition, you need to be action oriented.

I also like to use a sensational headline. Many people read blogs in aggregators, which generally show only the headline. So you have to give people a reason to click through. Blogs need to be real and personal. Reading it should be like hanging out with you. I play music for my readers. I show them videos I like. I tell them what I did over the weekend. And I tell them what is happening in the technology, Internet, and VC markets.

I would like to reiterate that I don't want any profiles of me. I am not newsworthy.

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

There is a difference between hiring a CEO and turning over control of the business.

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

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.

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

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.

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

If you have a native monetization system where the atomic unit of content is the ad unit, that scales down all the way to a small screen experience. That's why Twitter is performing so well on mobile.

There are so many startups out there raising money. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's a good thing. Entrepreneurship is in vogue. Innovators are innovating. Makers are making.

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.

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.

Profiles aren't journalism.