Fear not Zebras, I’m still resting

Posted on April 6, 2012. Filed under: startups, venture capital |

It’s still early…I’m just watching…observing…not really jumping in…two weeks into my move to San Francisco and I’m starting to isolate the factors that contribute to the way things are here…half of me is trying not to get sucked in…trying just to chill out and enjoy what my mom would hope is a break from the grueling hustle of startup life…but the energy here is calling to me…like a newly opened puzzle strewn across the kitchen table…waiting to be solved. I stand back from the table…riding bikes and hiking mountains…trying to relax and stay out of this mess of stealthy progress and 30 year old alliances built on the backs of now Fortune 500 megahits…but it calls me so hard…taunting me…I watch the way people move here, the hushed tones, muted enthusiasm and overly confident thought…a thin veneer of impenetrability masking a pretty average depth of thought. There is no humility here…no admittance of what is unknown…and an unwillingness to be vulnerable…to the outsider and to most a quite intimidating heir…but it is in this very heir that I see an Achilles heel…a point of weakness that I believe holds the key to defeating such a market. Just an early thought….i will wait, but I have found a chink in this armor…and I will strike.