Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The technology – how electronic devices work – digital systems and software
- Part II Innovators, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists
- 3 Edison's legacy: Industrial R&D
- 4 R&D goes global
- 5 Financing innovation: Venture capital
- Part III Global reach, global repercussions
- Appendix 1.1 Smaller, faster, more efficient MOSFETs
- Appendix 1.2 Building multi-transistor logic gates
- Appendix 1.3 MOSFETs in memory devices
- Appendix 1.4 CMOS reduces logic gate power dissipation
- Appendix 1.5 Laser diode basics
- Appendix 1.6 Light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
- Appendix 1.7 Photodetectors
- Appendix 1.8 Making fiber optic cables
- Appendix 1.9 Principles of LCD displays
- Appendix 2.1 The demise of analog computers
- Appendix 2.2 IP, TCP, and the Internet
- Appendix 2.3 Building an object-oriented program
- Index
5 - Financing innovation: Venture capital
from Part II - Innovators, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 07 December 2009
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of tables
- Acknowledgements
- Introduction
- Part I The technology – how electronic devices work – digital systems and software
- Part II Innovators, entrepreneurs, and venture capitalists
- 3 Edison's legacy: Industrial R&D
- 4 R&D goes global
- 5 Financing innovation: Venture capital
- Part III Global reach, global repercussions
- Appendix 1.1 Smaller, faster, more efficient MOSFETs
- Appendix 1.2 Building multi-transistor logic gates
- Appendix 1.3 MOSFETs in memory devices
- Appendix 1.4 CMOS reduces logic gate power dissipation
- Appendix 1.5 Laser diode basics
- Appendix 1.6 Light-emitting diodes (LEDs)
- Appendix 1.7 Photodetectors
- Appendix 1.8 Making fiber optic cables
- Appendix 1.9 Principles of LCD displays
- Appendix 2.1 The demise of analog computers
- Appendix 2.2 IP, TCP, and the Internet
- Appendix 2.3 Building an object-oriented program
- Index
Summary
In the morning sow your seed and in the evening do not be idle, for you cannot know which will succeed.
(Ecclesiastes 9.6)Just when global competition forced the big vertically-integrated US corporations to focus their R&D on near-term products, a new support system for innovation emerged: venture capital.
In the early 1980s, the venture capital industry became a major catalyst in bringing to market digital technologies that had been incubated in the corporate laboratories. In the mid-1990s came the rush of venture investments in start-up Internet companies.
Much as we might deplore the excesses of the Internet bubble, the many billions of dollars invested there left a permanent legacy of achievement. It is doubtful that the Internet would have developed as rapidly as it did, bringing with it the benefits that we enjoy today, without venture capital. About $200 billion of funding was provided between 1984 and 2005 to build thousands of new companies.
Having entered the venture capital business in 1983, I had a ringside seat as these events unfolded. I participated in the successes as well as the heartbreaks that come with revolutionary periods in history.
In hindsight it looks obvious that the new digital technologies would find willing investors. That was not the case. In fact, many promising companies struggled in their early years because the markets were so ill-defined.
But trailblazers in every era have a hard time finding investors to fund their exploits. The difficulties Columbus faced in financing his journeys are well known.
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- Information
- Competing for the FutureHow Digital Innovations are Changing the World, pp. 175 - 214Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2007