Silicon Bowery

11, February, 2010

Interesting similarities.

10, February, 2010

Roughly 2 weeks ago I left the mother of all innovative brands - Virgin - to start working for arguably the least relevant brand in technology anymore - AOL - to help them launch a new venture fund and incubator. This was met with mostly support and excitement from friends but also solicited a variety of hilarious responses:

“Dude are you getting paid in access CDs?”
“Why would you move to Reston?”
“Did you put me in the direct mail CRM when you joined? No CDs man!”

My reasons for joining were fairly simple. I’m a firm believer in the new strategy and am fascinated by the rebirth of AOL as a company and brand. To be a part of a team that could potentially make AOL relevant again is huge to me. In addition, many of you know I’m an internet junkie at heart and at Virgin was on the sidelines most of the time. Sure we did some cool stuff in the digital media space but nothing at this scale. This was a natural move as now I can help AOL shape an early stage investment vehicle that is squarely focused on technology innovation. We’ll lead with our products and services, but this can be a solid extension towards making us relevant again.

The next 60 days will be getting the fund vehicle up and running (entity, allocation, process for investing, investment committee, website, blah, blah, blah) and then we’ll look to take minority positions with great syndicates in interesting businesses focused around areas we can add serious value: content, advertising, local, comm/mobile and paid services. Overall it’s already been a blast and I look forward to hopefully creating a ‘not-lame’ corporate VC unit that is a meaningful part of the NYC early stage ecosystem.

In closing I’ll say this - I think the AOL spinoff is huge for the NYC technology community and broader early-stage ecosystem. A lot has already been said about the closing of the funding gap in NY and we’re obviously excited to be a new part of that. However I think there is something bigger here in that many of us come from start-ups, are good friends with start-ups and VCs, have invested in the early stages of businesses ourselves and/or have a passion for creation and get excited looking at new technology. Consider the power in adding another big player to the game that has significant assets to leverage and is open and willing to work with the early stage community. I think this is huge.

Oh, and, I owe a serious debt of gratitude to mentors who helped me make this choice like Dan, Andy, Chris, Tony, Mark, Paul, Jon and some others in the NY venture community that make this place so awesome.

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