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Greylock: An Adventure Capital Story

I just finished reading a book I checked out from the Ford Library at Fuqua titled Greylock: An Adventure Capital Story.  Written by William Elfers, the founder of Greylock Partners, the book chronicles the founding of Greylock and ensuing growth from 1964 to 1995 when the book was published.  The book's out of print and when released was privately published by Greylock, so I feel lucky to have gotten my hands on a copy.

Elfers goes into detail around how he raised the first fund, how he recruited the original general partners, and then he and other general partners provide accounts of individual investments.  One of things that really stood out to me about the book was the emphasis that Elfers put on his description of people - past colleagues from ARD, Greylock's limited partners, general partners, associates, entrepreneurs they invested in, CEO's they brought in to run their portfolio companies, investment bankers they worked with, other venture capital firms they repeatedly co-invested with (most notably Sutter Hill), etc.  The personal relationships, connections, team, and general ecosystem that Elfers built appears to by far be the major achievement that drove Greylock's success.

Elfers also ends the book with a chapter titled "Reflections".  Included in that chapter is a list of the Ten Venture Investment Guidelines that he presented "in a speech at the tenth anniversary celebration of the Palmer venture organization":
  1. Set aside the mystery. Success in venture capital is essentially homework and hard work.
  2. The unexpected is usually unfavorable.
  3. Technical experts are often right about the technology and wrong about the technology's business consideration.
  4. There is nothing wrong with cash, if you get enough of it.
  5. Watch out when your founder-president becomes too interested in his first Mercedes, joins the Young President's Association, takes dancing lessons, or begins making speeches at Harvard Business School.
  6. Beware of investment bankers bearing gifts!
  7. Do a lot of "little things" right; they add up.
  8. If you build companies well, the financial results take care of themselves, sooner or later.
  9. You can't live off paper or unrealized gains.
  10. As in most human or commercial affairs, reputation is everything.
Great book and worth a read if you can get your hands on it.

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