It's your basic family-style eatery, with brown leather booth seats and green Formica tabletops. And lots and lots of venture capitalists and entrepreneurs. Think about this behavior for a moment. Yet we venture capitalists and entrepreneurs stick together like a roving band, working and eating at the same places, staying in one another's orbit. I've got my own theory.
Venture capital is hard.
The managers of the companies that we fund marvel at this herding behavior. But in their favor, the venture capitalists' proximity to one another makes the entrepreneur's job of raising money easier. I can't tell you how often entrepreneurs make sure to drop hints that they're seeing other venture capitalists. They announce breathlessly that they can't stay long because they're scheduled for a meeting just down the road, or they apologize for arriving late because they're coming from a meeting just up the road. Sometimes we invest like a herd too.