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Mike Moritz Pledges $115 Million To Oxford University

7/12/2012

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Legendary venture capitalist Mike Moritz, who led Sequoia Capital's investments in Yahoo!, Google and PayPal, has pledged £75 million (~$116 million) to Oxford University to establish scholarships for low-income students.  Moritz recently announced that he was stepping back from some of his management duties at Sequoia Capital due to an incurable disease.  I applaud his spirit of giving and wish him all the best in the future.

Links to articles:
Forbes:  
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ryanmac/2012/07/12/billionaire-venture-capitalist-michael-moritz-pledges-115-million-to-oxford/
The Wall Street Journal:  
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303644004577521003926080824.html 
The Oxford Student:   
http://oxfordstudent.com/2012/07/12/record-donation-from-oxford-alumnus-to-fund-300m-scholarship/ 


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Marc Andreessen Interview: Wired

4/25/2012

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Wired Magazine has posted an interesting interview with Marc Andreessen titled "The Man Who Makes The Future:  Wired Icon Marc Andreessen."  The interview traces Marc's remarkable career, as inventor of the first graphical web browser Mosaic, to co-founding Netscape (the IPO of which helped fuel the dotcom era), to starting Loudcloud (an early cloud computing services business), to co-founding venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz.  It's an insightful article and a good read.

Here's a link to the article:  http://www.wired.com/epicenter/2012/04/ff_andreessen/all/1 

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The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives: Forbes

1/3/2012

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There's a recent article on Forbes.com entitled "The Seven Habits of Spectacularly Unsuccessful Executives" which discusses the common traits of senior executives at formerly successful companies and why these habits led to the decline of the companies.  It's worth a read.  Here's the link:   http://www.forbes.com/sites/ericjackson/2012/01/02/the-seven-habits-of-spectacularly-unsuccessful-executives/
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OpenTable's Rise and Fall is a Cautionary Tale: Fortune Article

1/3/2012

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Fortune has a good article  today about the pitfalls of investing in a hot tech company after it goes public.  The article, written by Kevin Kelleher, is entitled "OpenTable's Rise and Fall is a Cautionary Tale," and discusses the rise and fall of OpenTable's stock price and the reasons for this.  Essentially, the article identifies two primary reasons for the rise and fall of the stock price: the "herd mentality of momentum investors"; and the "company's business is beginning to face some headwinds."  It's worth a read.  Here's the link:    http://tech.fortune.cnn.com/2012/01/03/opentable-rise-and-fall/

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First Round Capital's Holiday Video

12/20/2011

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First Round Capital has posted a holiday video that parodies Rebecca Black's Friday video.  Creative and worth a watch.  Here's the link:   http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HP4HiZt3DFE&feature=channel_video_title

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Happy Thanksgiving!

11/24/2011

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Happy Thanksgiving everyone!
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Vinod Khosla's Five Second Rule for Slide Presentations

11/1/2011

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A recent article by Jerry Weissman on Forbes.com entitled "Vinod Khosla's Five Second Rule" essentially told me that my presentations would never pass muster for Mr. Khosla.  In the article, Mr. Weissman states:

"[Mr. Khosla] puts a slide on a screen, removes it after five seconds, and then asks the viewer to describe the slide.  A dense slide fails the test -- and fails to provide the basic function of any visual: to aid the presentation."

Here's a link to the article:  http://www.forbes.com/sites/jerryweissman/2011/10/26/vinod-khoslas-five-second-rule/

I'm going to have to apply this rule to my next presentation to see if my slides can be improved...

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On Steve Jobs

10/30/2011

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I'm in the midst of reading "Steve Jobs", the authorized biography by Walter Isaacson and have found it to be, so far, a fascinating read of a visionary, complicated man.  There have been a plethora of articles on Steve Jobs in the press over the past several weeks, but in the past couple of days a few articles have really caught my eye.

The first is an opinion column by Walter Isaacson in the New York Times entitled "The Genius of Jobs".  To me it is a good glimpse of the tone of the biography and well worth a read.  Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/sunday/steve-jobss-genius.html?pagewanted=all

Another is his sister Mona Simpson's eulogy for her brother Steve that was delivered on October 16 at the memorial service at the Stanford chapel.  Very touching.  Here's the link:  http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/30/opinion/mona-simpsons-eulogy-for-steve-jobs.html?pagewanted=all

Jean-Louis Gassée, who worked with Steve at Apple and who is featured in the Isaacson biography, writes his own review entitled "Steve's Bio: A Personal Perspective", which I found to be enlightening.  It can be found here:  http://www.mondaynote.com/2011/10/30/steve%E2%80%99s-bio-a-personal-perspective/

Finally, I find Steve's commencement speech at Stanford University at 2005 to be incredibly motivational.  Here's the link:  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UF8uR6Z6KLc


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Welcome to my Blog

10/1/2011

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Welcome to my Blog.  My purpose for establishing this Blog is to share my thoughts on topics of interest to me, including Venture Capital, Private Equity, Technology, IPOs, Corporate Finance, Investment Banking, Law, Economics, Politics and anything else that catches my attention.

My work experience includes being a private equity fund investor, an investment banker (telecom industry banker) and a corporate finance attorney (emphasis on venture capital).  My education and professional associations include receiving an MBA from UCLA Anderson, a JD from UC Hastings College of Law and a BA in Economics from UCLA.  I am also a CFA Charterholder.

My company is Campton Private Equity Advisors (www.camptongroup.com).  The views expressed in this website are my own and do not necessarily reflect the views of Campton Private Equity Advisors.
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    About this Blog

    This Blog is a collection of thoughts on a variety of topics of interest to me, including:
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    I hope you find this blog of interest.
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    ​All original works on this site are 
    © 2011-2020 Allen J. Latta. All rights reserved.  Neither this website nor any portion thereof may be reproduced or used in any manner whatsoever
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