Entrepreneurs As The New Asset Class

Forget about technology, market size and products. VCs should invest in the entrepreneur.

As a reputed hacker and a serial entrepreneur, Rich Skrenta personifies the kind of person that I love to invest in. He is by most accounts a prodigy--his technical prowess showcased to the world while still in the ninth grade. Early successes in his career include NewHoo (subsequently the Netscape Open Directory) and Topix. Our paths crossed while Rich was still at Topix, and it was instantly clear that his future was infinitely bright. I jumped at the chance to invest when he started Blekko, but the reality is I'm just as excited about what tomorrow will bring.

Enter my new lens on investing: Entrepreneur equity. Specifically, equity in all the commercially productive activities of a person's career. I want to invest in the innate drive, talent and potential of a person. I want to invest in what they're working on now, what they're thinking about next, and whatever they dream up in the future. When it comes to exceptional talent, I've stopped worrying about technology, market sizes, product-market fit, etc. I just want to invest before the valuation gets frothy (seed is so 2010).

In case you're wondering, no, I'm not a feudal overlord. I'm not talking about payday loans and cement boots. In fact, what I'm talking about is not a new idea at all. The concept of making long-term investments on a person's complete body of work has analogues in many industries. Bowie Bonds (and the further music-backed securities that followed) in 1997 were an example of what can happen when you securitize the intellectual output and associated property rights that span the career of an artist (starting notably with David Bowie and much of his work).


I want a cross between Bowie Bonds and the MacArthur "Genius Award," the $500,000 grant given by the MacArthur Foundation to exceptional people to work on projects of their choosing. Perhaps a more recent analogue is the social venture Enzi, which is like Kiva for education. They're finishing up pilots at Stanford University to allow peer-to-peer investments in Stanford international students with financial need. Help pay their tuition and you get a share of their income streams for a fixed period in their future. The first batch of these students has already graduated and is now entering the productive period of the cycle.

Let's take a test case--Jim Everingham. He was the technical cofounder of LiveOps, and most recently the founder of image monetization platform Pixazza. Both are portfolio companies and repeat bets on people, notably ex-Netscape veterans, Everingham and his team (including hacker-ninja Lloyd Tabb). To date, my firm has had to make multiple discrete investments in both entities, but the reality is those investments were just a proxy for following the career of a prolific talent. If there had been a mechanism to invest directly in Jim (and others in the nexus), I'd be the first to do it and posit that it would be a more accurate reflection of our actual investing behavior.

Venture capitalists, today more than ever, need to be talent scouts. In "Why Entrepreneurs Don't Need VCs," I outlined the reasons why the current landscape has fundamentally altered the role of venture capital, and as embryonic investors we have to think in terms of people, not companies. It's well established that most start-ups pivot multiple times, and the idea we invest in is rarely what the company ultimately does.

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It's been done by my dear friend and business partner, Rafe Furst: http://eme​rgentfool.com/2009/1​0/30/investing-in-su​perstars/ We also operate a fund that invests in for-proft social entreprene....

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More recently, I started to ask the question, if the art of investing is really about identifying great talent early, then lately I feel like I'm working at the wrong abstraction layer. Investing in financials, products, market opportunities, companies, ideas even--these are all second-order consequences of something more basic. I want to invest in the underlying asset. I want to invest in first principles. I want to invest in him (or her).
It seems to me it should be possible to make an equity investment in a person's future. It can be proscribed for entrepreneurial activities, or it can be structured around future income. The point is to give future entrepreneurs the validation and resources to take chances early in their careers. Imagine the Omar Hamouis and Caterina Fakes that could have been if they just had the flexibility to leave their day job and take a chance.

How does one actually make any of this happen? How do you value entrepreneurs? I hand-wave for now and leave that to wiser folks (like Forbes readers). But I do know where I'd put a couple of these bets. I've seen a twinkle in a few eyes lately and I want to double down.

Saad Khan is a partner at venture capital firm CMEA Capital where he leads CMEA's Web, digital media, and twinkle-stage investments in Pixazza, Blekko and Jobvite. He blogs at SaadWired.com and cmea.com/blog. You can follow him on Twitter @saadventures.
 
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Reader Comments

It's been done by my dear friend and business partner, Rafe Furst: http://eme​rgentfool.com/2009/1​0/30/investing-in-su​perstars/ We also operate a fund that invests in for-proft social entreprene [Read More]

Working from the social enterprise side and as an investor in developing country technology companies I can see this idea as having a tremendous value for social and financial gain. Many social entre [Read More]

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US unemployment hits wallet for a long time

Job loss can lead to long-term negative effects on finances, children

Diary of a Recession Baby

Aug. 18, 2010, 12:01 a.m. EDT · Recommend · Post:

By Ruth Mantell, MarketWatch

WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) -- Since being laid off as a machine operator more than a year ago, Robert Blalock has drained his individual retirement account. Now the 56-year-old resident of Fernley, Nev., doesn't expect to retire until his 70s. 

"We make our house payments, but it's month to month," Blalock said. "If I don't get a job pretty soon we may end up going into foreclosure."

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Blalock is one of millions of Americans who will experience a long-term lifestyle scar due to a job loss.

The long-term negative effects of unemployment can take different dimensions, said Harry Holzer, an economist at Georgetown and the Urban Institute. There will be earnings losses, and kids may have trouble in school, he and other economists said.

For those who lose a job, the consequences of a layoff are "severe and long lasting," Till von Wachter, an economist at Columbia University, recently testified before U.S. lawmakers.

"The average mature worker losing a stable job at a good employer will see earnings reductions of 20% lasting over 15 to 20 years," von Wachter said.

"The effect of a layoff is devastating," he told MarketWatch. "On average it will take a long time to recover."
Others agreed. "It's a huge hit, and also persistent," said Heidi Shierholz, a labor economist with Economic Policy Institute.

Earnings losses vary among demographic groups and industries, but no group is exempt from "significant and long-lasting costs of job loss," von Wachter said.

Still, that doesn't mean all laid-off workers will suffer the same fate.

"It's not predetermined," von Wachter said. "All of these statements are about averages. Workers can do things differently and they may advance and recover more quickly."

Education matters

Education is a key factor in a laid-off worker's career prospects, many economists said.

"If those same people who lose work experience now take the time to get a little more education, an extra degree or certificate, if it's in the right field that can offset the loss," Holzer said.

For his part, Blalock has been working to expand his skill set. He recently earned his bachelor's degree in special education, and is looking for a teaching job.

"This is one of those things where you kind of circle the wagons, and hope for things to change a little bit," he said. "Hopefully, things will turn around. Sometimes you have to regroup."

While additional training can be helpful, it doesn't help all workers, Holzer said.

"The older they are, the tougher it is, especially for less-educated workers," Holzer said. "If they have never set foot onto a community college campus, and they are 50 years old, it's a hard sell."

Also, the cost of education in both time and money can be off-putting. Also, education isn't a cure-all, von Wachter said.

In the short run, lower-educated workers often are hit hardest by unemployment, in terms of number of people laid off, than more educated labor-market entrants, von Wachter said.

"However, in the long run, less-educated individuals tend to recover faster," he said. "In fact, it is workers in the middle of the education distribution who can suffer close to permanent earnings consequences from entering the labor market in a recession; those individuals at the bottom and the top of the education distribution recover more quickly from a bad initial start.

"Thus, more education in itself does not yield full insulation against shocks occurring in the aggregate labor market," he said.

However, he said, more education may still raise earnings and employment stability.

Negative effects for children, young adults

Adults aren't the only ones affected by a dismal labor market. A parent's job loss raises the risk that his child will repeat a grade in school, according to recent research by economist Ann Huff Stevens at the University of California at Davis.

If a parent gets laid off, the probability of a child's grade retention rises by 0.8 percentage points, raising it to an average of 6.3%, according to the research.

"If we view grade repetition as a signal of academic difficulties, these short-run effects may be consistent with findings of longer-term negative outcomes in education and earnings," Stevens wrote.

And of course, the weak labor market also hits young adults. Fran Dinehart, a 24-year-old cousin of mine who just earned her master's degree in social work, is currently looking for a good full-time position. She's somewhat concerned about her prospects.

"I'm pretty worried. I'm not seeing a lot of opportunities to do the kind of work I'd like to be doing," Fran said.

She may have good reason to worry: The unemployment rate for 20- to 24-year olds was 15.6% in July, compared with 9.5% for the general population. Read government data about employment.
 
In school, Fran specialized in gerontology. Ideally, she would like to work with an agency that helps families and communities maintain seniors in their homes as long as possible. "It's pretty competitive," she said. "I'm not in the position to turn down anything, so I'm not going to be picky about wages."

While unemployment remains highs, young cohorts will be adversely affected, Shierholz said.

"We have this huge swath of workers who are going to see these persistent effects," Shierholz said. "For people who lost a job, or didn't get that first good job, it's not clear how we are going to keep [negative] effects from happening to them."

Young workers "will lose early work experience that they would otherwise have had," Holzer said. "They seem to be permanently on a lower trajectory."

Ruth Mantell is a MarketWatch reporter based in Washington.

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Website represents new frontier in cyberbullying, experts say

It's new, it's exciting, it's quickly growing in popularity - it's also usually anonymous and potentially dangerous.

 

Formspring.me is a nine-month-old social networking website that allows users - nearly a third of whom are 17 or younger - to ask cruel, anonymous questions or make comments such as "Go kill yourself and make the world a better place," or "Is that you in your profile picture? It looks like a dead old man."

Experts acknowledge that while cyberbullying has been going on for a while now - the deaths this year of at least three teens have been linked to it - Formspring represents a new frontier.

"This site is essentially an anonymous way for teens to bully each other, and the danger in that is it, over time, becomes overwhelming," said Missy Wall, director of Teen Contact, a Dallas-based teen hotline. "Cyber bullying isn't new, but this sort of copy-paste teenager impulsiveness causes kids to make an account to try to be popular."

But Formspring officials say that the anonymous aspect is not necessarily harmful.

Sarahjane Sacchetti, director of communications for Formspring, said the site is giving people around the world "a new way to connect and express themselves." She said about 100 million questions are answered each month.

"All of our users want to have a public platform for them to feel comfortable asking their friends questions or even asking their boss a question without the ramifications," she said.

Alexis Montes De Oca, the father of a 16-year-old Formspring user in Grapevine, Texas, said that he is concerned about what can happen when the users are not known to each other.

"With all the abuse and harassing that can go on, it can pose a real danger," De Oca said. "Kids are not always aware of the implications of their opinions. Sometimes these opinions are not shared lightly, and they do not know the effect they can have on somebody else."

Formspring is not always anonymous, though, and it's not always used in a nefarious fashion. Company officials say it's intended to give its 12 million regular users - more than 50 million people visit the site each month - the opportunity to "do what comes naturally: ask questions and give answers about anything and everything."

And some prominent individuals and companies, such as Marvel Comics executive editor Tom Brevoort and Red Bull energy drink, use the site to promote their businesses and strengthen their relationships with their audiences and supporters.

Many North Texas teens who use Formspring say they initially joined the site to stay connected with friends. But the comments eventually became more grave and hostile.

"When I made the account, everyone was being nice," said Elizabeth Kirby, a 17-year-old rising senior at Grapevine High School. "But then I began to get messages telling me I was fat and that I liked food and I would respond, but in a classy way. It ended up getting to the point where I was horrified to check my Formspring because I would always get a mean question on it."

Kirby said her own self-confidence helps keep her from being devastated by the comments, but she knows that's not always the case for others.

"I have a relative amount of confidence, so I am able to ignore it, but people like my sister are crushed when people say those things," Kirby said. "The other day, someone called her an ugly, fat elephant on Facebook. She felt terrible."

Comments of that type are not surprising to cyberbullying experts, who say that online aggression can begin as young as 7 years old.

"The things that kids say to each other are beyond cruel," said Parry Aftab, founder of StopCyberbullying.org in Newark, N.J. "Kids actually get together in groups and decide which phrases would be the most hurtful to their intended victim. I've seen everything from 'You're sleeping with your sister' to 'Your mom wanted to abort you' and of course, 'You're fat, ugly, stupid, etc.' "

Kirby said she ended up blocking anonymous questions on her account to avoid harassment. Although many Formspring users accept anonymous questions, they have the option of blocking those when they set up their accounts. They can also block specific people or delete unwanted questions before they are made public.

Austin Keeler, 18, a recent graduate of St. Mark's School of Texas, said he is aware of the negative comments on Formspring, but he plans to continue using the site because it adds to his social networking experience.

"Obviously there are some bad things, but for the most part, it is good, addictive fun," Keeler said. "I know a lot of people who have a lot of bad things out there, but for the most part, the people who read it know those things aren't true. They are just wild accusations.

"Still, if push comes to shove, you can just delete your account."
Sacchetti hopes it won't come to that for most Form-spring users. She said the company will work with law enforcement and has the ability to trace a user's IP address if comments become too threatening or if a legal issue arises.

"We also have stricter policies for 13- to 17-year-olds," Sacchetti said. "For them, we have more private logins and settings for anonymity, where only logged-in users can ask anonymous questions."

Teenagers' Formspring accounts are automatically given "protected" status, which prevents them from being viewed or found by search engines. And, Sacchetti said, youngsters must grant access to users they want to share content with.

But any teenager can override those restrictions by selecting other readily available profile settings - and many often do.

The cyberbullying problem - and how to rectify it - may not be limited to young people, though. Anne Collier, co-director of ConnectSafely.org, said that while schools can play a large part in educating children about Internet safety, parents have a more significant role.

"We can't blame it all on children," said Collier, whose Web-based forum studies the impact of social websites. "If we as adults slander each other openly, it is learned behavior. This is a community effort. We have to be role models for our children."

Andrea Lair-Kirby, Elizabeth's mother, agreed and added that parents should know as much as possible about how their children are using the Internet and how that use is affecting them.

"Talk to your child and make them understand what they are doing," Lair-Kirby said. "Parents are often thinking, 'Well, not my child,' thinking it won't happen to them or that their kids aren't doing it. But they need to know it can happen and how to deal with it by talking to your child."

By Daniela Bermea and Rebecca Ryan, The Dallas Morning News 
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