This may be partly due to another difference in business culture. If you've been bankrupt in the US, it shows you're willing to be entrepreneurial and take risks. Over here, if you're bankrupt, it's still seen as evidence of moral turpitude. While speed and vision are essential in dot-coms, it is important to assemble a team with critical skills such as building a web site, developing distribution networks and plotting the financial path to an initial public offering. There are signs that the type of manager favoured by venture capitalists and internet incubators is changing as interest spreads from consumer businesses to fast-growing electronic markets between businesses.
Managers tend to be more experienced.
They may be in the industry itself and have a bit more grey hair. Managers with hard-nosed experience and an ability to adapt to the pace of cyberspace are regarded as gold dust. The cultural gap is highlighted by Viant, a US-based internet consultancy run on fluid, Silicon Valley lines with few titles, no hierarchy and an emphasis on adaptability rather than experience. Robbie Vann-Adibe, who came to the UK last year to spearhead the firm's European expansion, believes Europeans are often reluctant to share equity beyond top management and are wedded to hierarchy. The US has longer experience of . . .