The article does seem to have a good
description of how Silicon Valley venture
capital thinks and works.

Of course, again, on average the venture
firms have poor ROI:

http://www.kauffman.org/newsroom/2012/07/institutional-limit...

http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2013/02/venture-capital-returns.html...

Yes, apparently the Silicon Valley
information technology (IT) venture
firms are trying to evaluate everything
that comes in the door having to do with
IT. There's a problem doing this: By
analogy, it's like picking dart throwers.
Only a tiny fraction of the dart throwers
are actually experts, and the rest are
amateurs throwing wildly. But, there are
so few experts and so many more amateurs
that, on average, nearly all the darts in
the center of the target come from lucky
amateurs and not real experts. So, net,
the Silicon Valley is trying to evaluate
the huge fraction of amateurs that mostly
need just luck.

Much better would be to concentrate on the
few real experts who need much less in
luck. "Few"? Right, but so is the number
of desired successes, and the number of
real experts should be sufficient.

Then, with the article, we come to a
significant point: The Silicon Valley
venture capital (VC) firms just do not
know how to plan, do, and
evaluate projects from real
experts.

Some people do know: The shortest
description of project planning is:

Step 1: Pick a good problem.

Step 2: Use IT to get a good solution.

So, sure, in Step 1 want to solve a
suitably important problem, one where the
first good or a much better solution will
be a must have and not just a nice to
have for enough people so that the number
of people times the average earnings per
person is enough to make a real unicorn.

Or, in crude, simple terms, maybe want a
must have solution for a big ass
problem in a big ass market.

Sure, the ideal situation, although likely
not in IT, would be a safe, effective,
inexpensive one pill taken once cure for
any cancer. Such a project would just
"cut right through" (borrowing from the
movie Moneyball) all the nonsense about
body language, vision to change the
world, how to manage 100, 1000, 10,000
people, hard scrabble backgrounds, tone of
voice, assertive manner, clothes
selections, etc.

And, sure, in Step 2 want to use IT to get
the "first good or much better solution",
defensible, with barriers to entry,
etc.

So, from the article, apparently Silicon
Valley VCs don't know how to evaluate
projects that follow the two steps above.

Does anyone know how to do such
evaluations? Sure:

For Step 1, that the problem being solved
is suitably important should, like the
example of the cancer pill, be obvious.
Right, here get to rule out considering
projects such as Fab, PopSugar, Zulily,
SnapChat, AirBnb.

So, what's left is Step 2, and evaluating
that is mostly just technical.

While apparently Silicon Valley is next to
hopeless at evaluating new, powerful
technology, our better research
universities, NSF, NIH, DARPA, etc. are
quite good, thank you.

So, an example of a project with really
good technology? Sure:

http://iliketowastemytime.com/sites/default/files/sr71_black...

Sorry, Marc: On my BoD I want -- it's
crucial and I insist -- people who can
understand my business, including the
crucial core, unique IT, and for that,
Marc, I want to know what you did in your
STEM field Ph.D. program and have done in
research since. E.g., I want people like
the dissertation advisors in STEM fields
in top research universities and problem
sponsors at NSF, NIH, DARPA. How many
Silicon Valley VCs do you know who
qualify? I want people like those who
looked at Kelly Johnson's engineering
drawings and approved the SR-71; Marc,
their batting average is much better
than yours or nearly any VC (Chris Sacca
may be on the way to being the only
exception), and they fund just off pieces
of paper.

Marc, from the article your evaluations
look like you would have asked Kelly
Johnson if his SR-71 could also fly to
Mars and refuse to fund him unless he
enthusiastically said "Mars? Yes, and to
infinity and beyond!" or some such
nonsense. Look, Marc, it was Mach 3+,
80,000+ feet, 2000+ miles without
refueling, never shot down -- as needed,
as planned, as accomplished.

Marc, in simple terms, in IT, you just do
not know very well what you are doing; on
my BoD, can't use you; your wildly
irrational flights of nonsense could sink
my company.