ICCパートナーズ 小林雅のBlog

復活

無事、視力回復手術が終了し、ようやくメールなど読める状態まで回復しました。
まだ完全回復ではないですが、明日から仕事復帰予定です。

しばらくお休みします

レーシック手術のため、しばらく更新お休みします。

夏休みは軽井沢でした。ブレストンコートは良かったです。

3号ファンド1号案件：カフェグルーヴ

弊社の3号ファンドの一号案件が確定しました。カフェグルーヴ社です。社長の浜田さんのブログに「第三者割当増資」とあります。　担当は仮屋薗と川口になります。仮屋薗が社外取締役に就任します。

浜田さんとは2004年11月の第一回ＮＩＬＳに出会い、今回　こういう話にいたりました。　

私は直接の担当ではないですが、いろいろサポートしていきたいと思います！

Michael Moritz氏の研究

ウィキペディアなどで調べてみました。　経歴は面白いです。セコイアの前はＴＩＭＥなどで本を書いていたりしました。　Technogy Partners の創業メンバーとありますが、Venturewire の発行やカンファレンスを開催をしていた会社で、現在はダウジョーンズに買収されています。げんざいはダウジョーンズベンチャーキャピタル　となっていますね。

（参考）

Interview: Michael Moritz of Sequoia Capital

Michael Moritz

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Michael Moritz is a venture capitalist with Sequoia Capital in Menlo Park, California, in the Silicon Valley.　His internet company investments include Google, Yahoo!, and PayPal. And Webvan, PlanetRx, and eToys. Google was a rare co-investment with John Doerr of rival venture capital firm Kleiner, Perkins, Caufield & Byers.

Moritz joined Sequoia in 1986, after working as a reporter for Time, writing the 1984 book The Little Kingdom: the Private Story of Apple Computer, and co-founding Technologic Partners, a technology newsletter and conference company.

Moritz was born in Wales and educated at the Christ Church college of the University of Oxford, where he received a Master of Arts in history. In 1978, he received a Master of Business Administration degree from the Wharton School of Business at the University of Pennsylvania.

検索したところ、このページが見つかりました。（以下引用）

THE LITTLE KINGDOM
      アメリカン・ドリーム

1984 年春発行のこの本では、多くの関係者のインタビュー等をもとにWozやJobsの生い立ちから始まり、Macintosh誕生までのApple社の成功物 語が描かれている。この本に収められる多くのエピソードは、後に出版される多くのアップル社関連の書籍の参考書となった。例えばRegis MaKennna AgencyがApple IIをホビイストのマーケットから家庭用、ビジネス用途に広げるためにとった雑誌の広告戦略やその試行錯誤、キャスターDick Cavettと主婦による初めてのTVコマーシャルに至る背景などの記述。マニュアルに関しては、製品の出荷を優先するMichael Scottに対して、Jef Raskinの作るマニュアルのデザインに関してJobsが大変厳しい注文をつけたエピソードが紹介されていてなるほどと思った。また、ヨーロッパにおけ る製品販売に関するITTとの提携、教育市場に関するBell & Howellとの提携、1978年３月のDow Jonesとの提携に至るエピソードとこれらの一連の動きにおけるMike Markkulaの果たした役割など枚挙にいとまがないエピソードが紹介されている。著者のMichael Moritzはペンシルバニア州立大学のMBA（経営学修士）で当時Time Magazine勤務。

              

   

日本語版は、「アメリカン・ドリーム」、副題に企業急成長の秘訣とある。訳者の青木榮一氏には企業ものを中心に数多くの翻訳書がある。出版日は1985年１月２５日。アップル社のの年次株主総会で、未完成のMacintosh       Officeがジョッブスとスカリーにより華々しく紹介された翌日のことである。        The Little Kingdom：1984年刊、Michael Moritz著、William Morrow and       Company,Inc.、336ページ、A5版。       アメリカン・ドリーム：19８５年刊、Michael Moritz著、青木　榮一訳、二見書房刊、356ページ、A5版。

Interview with Michael Moritz

Interview with Michael Moritz

最近はＫＰＣＢより、セコイアキャピタルの方が面白い会社に投資している感じがします。
Ｇｏｏｇｌｅの投資などで有名なマイケル・モリッツ氏などの研究をしています。

以下、インタビュー。　勉強になります。

On Saturday, February 7th, the Venture Capital & Private Equity Club held its 10th Annual Conference. The day was a huge success, thanks to the 50+ organizers, panelists, keynote speakers and sponsors.

Prior to his keynote, The Harbus was lucky enough to get some words of wisdom from Michael Moritz, a partner at the California-based firm Sequoia Capital, on the venture capital industry. Mr. Moritz helped start, organize and finance companies that now account for about ten percent of the value of NASDAQ. Among the successes attributable to Mr. Moritz are Yahoo!, Google, Paypal, and Flextronics, to name just a few. Sequoia Capital also provided the original financing for Apple Computer, Atari, Oracle, Cisco Systems and nVidia.

Harbus: Given the proliferation of VC firms over the past decade, what differentiates Sequoia Capital from other venture capital firms?

Michael Moritz: The fact that we are still in business! If you look at the venture landscape of a few years ago, there were a lot of entities and people who wanted to be in the venture capital business. They barreled into the venture business and hung out their respective shingles. I don't know how many of those entities were, but it wouldn't surprise me if there were 200. All the new breed of venture firms who wanted to be in the business: the very well-heeled European and Asian billionaires, the angel investors, the corporate venture people, and the incubators. They have all gone away.

People misunderstood how difficult the VC business is so you have a huge winnowing of the list of companies competing. There are not very many firms around that have two attributes which are very difficult to attain and maintain. One is that they have more than a plausible record. And second is that they remain incredibly competitive. Sometimes it's very difficult to do the latter if you have a plausible track record because people get complacent and get lazy. They rest on their laurels and forget how to compete. We have always operated under the premise that our next investment is our most important investment.

Harbus:  What sector in technology investing are you excited about today?

MM: That's independent of where we chose to invest. One of the wonderful things about the venture business is that you are perpetually surprised by things you haven't thought about or contemplated. You are invariably in an atmosphere with extremely smart, young, and very driven people. And that is an enormously stimulating place to be. As soon as you begin to ossify or get ridged or wonder where the hell things have gone when something has already happened, your spirit begins to age. The venture business is a fantastic way to stay mentally young. That is very difficult to do, and I don't think there are many other pursuits where you have that potential. And that to me is the great unsung lesson in being in the venture capital business. You are surrounded by twenty-some-things.

Harbus:   In your view would you compare and contrast the investment opportunities between Europe, Asia, and the US? 

MM: We have always been a very parochial partnership and make no secret of the fact that while we'll invest in more mature companies outside of the west coast; for the very early stage companies, in things that are probably too small to even deserve the name "company" - its just three or four people, we will always do that on the west coast: practically all in the Bay area. Now, it's also clear that with more experience, improved communications and vigorously growing economies elsewhere there are plenty of begging opportunities in. Pick your favorite geography, but I would focus much more on the emerging markets like India, China, Tripoli thank I would the European markets. Having said that, we have no ambition to set up shop in India or China. But, we do have great ambition that our companies understand that these are good, new markets.

Secondly, that we capitalize on the human capital potential that is resident in these geographies. We wouldn't dream of investing in a software company today without asking the people associated with it what their plans are for doing development in India. It may even be in the first thirty days of formation of the company, but capitalizing on this enormous talent that is deployed elsewhere I think its going to be increasingly important in the venture business.

Harbus: One often hears that there is too much money chasing a small proportion of good deals in the Venture Capital and Private Equity business. Would you agree with this statement?

MM: I've been in the business since 1986 and I can never remember a period, a year, or a quarter during which somebody hasn't moaned or whined there is too much capital chasing to few opportunities. It is the perpetual momentum that they have chosen in this business. To some extent it is true, and part of the reason we had the explosions at the end of the 1990's was because the supply of capital into these companies was far too abundant. If you had to finance all the reasonable early stage companies in the Silicon Valley - the new investments not all the follow-on rounds - you probably don't need more that $500-$700 million a year to finance all the adequate opportunities that really deserve financing. That's a purest and perfectionist way of looking at the world and then there is the reality.

Now the supply of capital into the venture capital business clearly dropped off a cliff as did the stock market and the last couple of years in California have probably been the best investing environment for the last fifteen or sixteen years in the venture capital business. But now as people regain their footing, emerge from hibernation, and build their confidence the supply of capital is increasing. The investment returns will decline in correlation to the increasing supply of capital. It's a fact of life. If you are interested in the venture business or interested in investing in venture partnerships, we've always cautioned people who can't afford to do market timing. You have to dollar-average your investments over periods when capital is both scarce and plentiful.

Harbus: What advice would you give someone considering a career in venture capital right now, especially since jobs are extremely competitive and positions are limited?

MM: You have to be very humbled. Not by the individuals in these firms but by the challenge of the business. It's a very hardening business and every time we think we have it figured out we get our clocks cleaned. It is not a business that gets any easier. No matter how long you've been at it, investments you've participated in and how successful some of these investments have been, the very next investment that we make may end up losing 100% of our capital.

Harbus:   In your opinion, what makes a good venture capitalist?

MM: I don't think there is any perfect recipe for picking somebody from the Harvard Business School or else where who wants to join venture partnership. It's very difficult to figure out from somebody's background whether they will be successful in the venture capital business. I can think of numerous examples of people with glittering resumes and burnished credentials who you would have thought would thrive in the venture business, and they flame out. I can think of people with very unlikely backgrounds who have flourished in the venture business. We've given up on trying to predict who will and won't do well in the venture business.

Obviously, when we bring somebody into our partnership we're looking for a particular set of attributes. We want people who are clear thinkers, very driven, and very enthusiastic about being in the business.

Harbus: With the changes of capital flows into the venture capital business and the ever changing competitive landscape, what does Sequoia Capital do to remain competitive?

MM: We raised our 11th early stage partnership last year. I went back and read the initial memorandum that was put together for the first Sequoia partnership that was raised in '72 or '73. And, if you listen to the proposition and ignore the numbers, it's investing in companies that a shift in technology gives them a slight advantage, it's investing, for us, parochially, and it's working very hard as self extended members of the founding team to try and develop a little idea into a small company. And we think the small company will evolve into a more permanent part of the landscape.

Harbus:   We assume you have a busy and full schedule, how do you spend your free time?

MM: In remarkably boring ways. Like any pursuit, it does not matter what you do whether you are in academia or running a company, if you want to remain at the top of your game you have to work pretty hard. So, we work pretty darn hard. And, beyond family it does not leave a lot of time for anything.

Harbus:   If you could give one piece of advice to HBS students, be it professional or personally, what would it be? 

MM:  Skip Business School! (laughing)

Harbus:  Could you please elaborate.

MM: There are a lot of wonderful graduates from some of the best business schools in many of companies in which we are investors. But, you can get hell of an education working in small and large companies as well. Some of the best companies have been organized, created, and developed by people who don't have incredible credentials.

And if the question is focused much more on advise for somebody from HBS going into the venture business, it would be the same observation and counsel that I would give somebody 45 years old going into the venture capital business. Which is, if this is a new endeavor for you; don't expect it to come easily. It's very much an apprentice business. That doesn't sit well with a lot of people because people think the venture business looks reasonably easy from the outside. "What could be that difficult about it?" People think that on a personal basis I might have been fairly successful investing my own money so this is just another aspect of the investing business. And yet it turns out to be as I mentioned in the beginning a pretty humbling business. To marry the real determination and enthusiasm with a considerable amount of patience; it takes time to figure out if you are any good in the venture business. This is not something where you can measure, at the end of the week or at the end of twelve weeks, if you have written all the lines of code you promised or achieved the sales target that your manager gave you. This is a very difficult business to measure your progress. You go into the venture business in 2004, it may very well be 2009 before an investment that you have been associated with today blossoms.

Harbus: We believe that people learn from their mistakes, could you elaborate on a lesson learned from a mistake you've made in the business.

MM: Well, our history is littered with carcasses of investments that have not worked. We try to adopt the lessons of the successes that we've gotten from the companies that have flourished and not to forget the lessons of yesteryear. Probably, the biggest of the lessons is that capital intensive businesses are not suited for venture capital investing. So we had an investment in a calamitous fiasco called Webvan which was an enormous, capital intensive undertaking. Those sorts of infrastructure investments are best left to others. The best venture returns are those that come from investing very small amounts of money.

Harbus:  What could you tell us about Google and the excitement around the company? 

MM:  I could tell you a lot, but then I would have to shoot you! 

Harbus:  Thank you for your time!

祝 ミクシイ上場承認

いよいよ、ミクシイさんが上場です。　業績の伸びがすばらしい。日本のＷｅｂ２．０系企業の代表的な会社ですし、　株式市場のおいても代表銘柄になるでしょう。　

ＤｅＮＡさんのモバゲータウンといい、一気に成長スピードが加速するコミュニティ系サービスはすごいです。

ＮＩＬＳにも3回ぶりに参加する笠原さんの話が楽しみです。　

話は変わりますが、8月末には弊社の投資先でもあるネットエイジさんが上場します。（弊社の1号ファンドがネットエイジさんの第４位の株主です）　　弊社の一号ファンドは96年にスタートしました（5.4億円のファンド）。13社に投資し、６社ＩＰＯ（ワークスＡＰ、グッドウィル、フルキャスト、東京個別指導学院、フィスコ、ネットエイジ）となります。残るはあと1社（ベーグル＆ベーグル）がどうなるか・・・。

私は一号ファンドに関与していない（2号ファンド以降の運用担当者）のですが、仮屋薗さんすごすぎです。　

「外国為替証拠金取引の真実」

投資先のマネースクウェアジャパン社の山本社長が本を出しました。弊社の投資分野として金融サービス分野があります。社数は少ないですが、先日ＩＰＯしたフィスコ社とマネースクウェアジャパン社があります。　マネースクウェアジャパン社は怪しいといわれる証拠金取引の中で、信頼・信用　という点を重視し、業績を伸ばしています。住友信託の分別管理信託の利用や的確なアドバイスが特徴です。　　業界のパイオニアの方が起業した会社です。　

仕事の流儀

私なりの仕事の流儀を考えてみた。　

私の大切にしているのは、仕事の質とスピードである。　特に後者のスピードを重視している。　細かい点（誤字とか）は気にせず、特にかくスピード重視だ。　メールはすぐに返信する。　思いついたら、すぐに実行に移す　などだ。

私とメールのやりとりをすると、返信が速い　といわれることが多い。席に座っているときには基本的に着信があったらすぐに返事を書く。　私の仕事は、自分の時間が一番貴重だ。生産性をいかに高めるかが重要だし、仕事は一人でするものではなく、コラボレーションなので、返信のスピード　は相手の仕事を早めることにつながる。　

投資先の経営上、重要な判断をだらだら考えるのではなく、すぐに判断する。　すぐに判断できないのであれば、能力が不足していることだ。　

サッカーは誰でもできる。キック　、ドリブル　、トラップはちょっとやれば誰でもできる。しかし、世界のトップレベルの選手　と　普通の人との違いは、　スピード。　パスの判断も速し、ドリブルも速い。　速さの中で正確性がある。　　とにかく速い。

速くできれば、いろいろできる。　仕事の幅も広がる。私が一番重視している仕事の流儀だ。

プロフェッショナル 仕事の流儀 夏スペシャル

プロフェッショナル　仕事の流儀　夏スペシャル を見ました。　プロフェッショナルたちはいかにして壁を乗り越えたか　というテーマなのですが、非常に勉強になる内容でした。

茂木さんは脳の動きとか、役割とかから解説するので、　「直感を信じる」というのはどういうことか　とか、　　突然　飛び出して、観覧車に一人で乗る　といったことはどういう脳の動きか　といったことを説明し、納得がいく内容でした。　　プロフェッショナルは、苦境を必ず経験して、乗り越えている　ということでした。　大変なことを　乗り越える　ということでパワーアップする＝成長する　ということは真であると思いますし、いろいろな人が意外な場面で何かを気づくというのは非常に興味深い話です。

次回はザインの飯塚さんの特集ですが、楽しみです。　　New Industry Leaders Summitでも茂木さんにご参加いただき、いろいろ起業家たちと対談する　という企画があったら、非常に面白いのではないか　と勝手にテレビ見ながら　思いました。
(まじめ企画）

私事ですが、レーシックを受けることにしました。

来週　8月15日にレーシックの手術を受けることにしました。　手術後1週間ほどはＰＣとは無縁の生活をするため、ブログのアップはしばらくお休みします。

仕事は頭は元気なので電話などで対応可能です。