The Gillmor Gang — Robert Scoble, Keith Teare, Kevin Marks, and Steve Gillmor — ring in the New Year in celebration of surviving yet another crisis in the venture capital community. The concern is that acquihires represent the capitulation of innovation in service of the big getting bigger. As cloud computing lowers the barriers to entry for first stage ideas, the struggle is moving to staying alive long enough to pivot to the second-stage models that form the corpus of the VC success equation.
@scobleizer sees an analogy in Bob Lefsetz’ chronicling of the record industry’s collapse into a singles market, but the rise of streaming and binge viewing suggests the death of the album is vastly overstated. We’re seeing a cyclical rebirth of the innovation cycle, as the long term winners of tomorrow are built on the profits of the last big bets.
@stevegillmor, @scobleizer, @kteare, @kevinmarks
Produced and directed by Tina Chase Gillmor @tinagillmor