
It is 2020 and after an 18-month hiatus, I am resetting and will make an effort to post more frequently (er, maybe). A lot has happened — even in the past 12 months: SoftBank’s Vision Fund looked unstoppable with its $100B Megafund. It upped the game in Later-Stage investing into such high-fliers as WeWork, Uber, Compass, et al. Then WeWork happened (or its IPO didn’t happen). With its IPO missteps, WeWork has become the Scape goat or cautionary tale of “Growth-at-all-costs”; weak unit economics; moral hazard in company culture excess; and lack of corporate governance. WeWork’s impact has been felt in Belt-tightening (I.e. hundreds of layoffs and other cost cutting — no WeWork beer or luxury balloons at Uber) across Pizza robot companies (Zume); Uber and so many others. The canary in the coal mine is if the most well-capitalized and late-stage ventures cannot easily access capital (to stay private); go Public (due to perceived business model flaws, weak unit economics, etc.); or get acquired (with their outsize valuations), how much does this dampen the rest of the Tech Ecosystem at earlier stages? M&A may be affected and the path to liquidity is more daunting. However, I leave you with a glimmer of hope: It may not be all Doom and Gloom as alternative sources of capital (E.g. Crowdfunding, family offices/ UHNW non-institutional investors, et al.) are growing rapidly. Let’s see how things shake out in the coming 24-months.