Sometimes the stuff that happens “behind the scenes” of Defrag is really worth sharing. What follows is the email that Paul Kedrosky sent to his panel participants today (posted with permission). Enjoy:
Folks –
Good to e-meet you all.
For our session we’re going to have some fun next week by having a sprightly discussion about the news. If you’ve watched Around the Horn on ESPN, you’ll have the idea. I’m going to toss something out, probably loudly and insultingly to someone or something, and then we’ll all run to positions as far apart from anything defensible as we can, and commence the sparring and witty repartee.
Some sample topics:
– Twitter has proven that revenue is bad for valuation. What are you doing to make your revenue model more mysterious? What advice would you give Dick?– Venture capitalists are people who wanted to be bankers, but lacked the personality. Discuss. Be sure to use examples. Extra points if they live in Colorado, or are named “Lindzon”.
– If you have a pre-money valuation of $4m, then $1m invested, but a 15% ESOP, what is the real pre-money of your venture? Extra points for converting to euros.
I’ll also touch on some stuff in the general news too, like the 60 Minutes story this weekend about how hackers tried to blow up Brazil’s electrical grid.
At the end of it all I’ll completely arbitrarily award the Kedrosky Prize (Award?) to the person who made me laugh the most toward the end the session. Yes, my memory is that bad.
Look forward to it.
(Cross-posted @ the Defrag Blog)
