Ma, who also worked as an associate with ABS Capital Partners, noted her deep respect for ABS investor Dean Goodermote in an interview published on the NBC website. But the Bostonian reserved her greatest admiration for her mom and dad: “From the Ozarks of Arkansas to the suburbs of Washington, D.C., they have always carried with them a strong work ethic and deep family values.”
Ideals aside, Ma has a difficult task ahead of her. Venture capitalists have a lousy reality show track record. The first contestant Trump fired on last year’s The Apprentice was David Gould, a senior associate with Merlin Biomed Group. Before that, Advent International’s Juleby Hirsch failed to make the initial cut on Fox degradation-fest Temptation Island II.
Ma was still “active” as of press time in mid-September. Apparently, she won’t be too broken up if she doesn’t win. “It’s not reality, it’s a game,” she says.
Love and Adventure
At a time when more people are finding true love over the Internet, newlywed Bart Schachter met his wife, Charlene, in a decidely low-tech place: a coffee shop.
Schachter, a founder and managing partner of San Francisco’s Blueprint Ventures, got married on Aug. 30 in New Hampshire.
Their romance began three years ago in a San Francisco coffee shop. Charlene was in town on business and was waiting to meet a college friend before hopping on a flight back home to Boston. Lucky for Bart, her friend never showed, so Charlene sat down. When Schachter came in for his cappuccino, he found that the only empty seat was at Charlene’s table. He asked if he could sit down, and the rest, as they say, is history.
If you want to know more about the two love birds, you can get the whole story at www.bartandcharlene.com.
After the wedding, the couple jetted off to Africa. They planned to visit Johannesburg and Cape Town, then go on a safari in the wildlife parks of Botswana. Why Africa? It was a part of the world neither had ever seen before.
Barring a run-in with a disgruntled lion, Schachter was was expected back at work after Sept. 21.
Mr. Prolific
Guy Kawasaki says he can’t believe he’s written eight books. Neither can we. That number seems low.
The entrepreneur-turned-columnist for Forbes.com was once an Apple Computer evangelist, who preached the Mac religion. These days he’s a managing director for Garage Technology Ventures, an early stage venture capital firm.
His eighth book, which came out last month, is The Art of the Start. It covers pitching, fund-raising, recruiting, partnering, writing a business plan, speaking, rainmaking, positioning, branding and bootstrapping.
If you’re unsure whether to buy the 288-page hardcover, consider this: For $34.95, it comes bundled with a 128MB USB flash drive to backup your laptop before your next big VC meeting. Or, if you’d like to learn more about its contents, you can listen to an MP3 of Chapter 3, The Art of Pitching. The recording costs $4.95, but you can get it for free if you set up an account with BitPass, an online payment processing company that is backed by Garage and other VCs.
Kawasaki’s book comes packed with plenty of praise, too, including kudos from eBay founder Pierre Omidyar, Silicon Valley marketing guru Geoffrey Moore and Michael Moritz, a partner with Sequoia Capital. Moritz gushes that all an entrepreneur needs to be successful is “a garage, an idea, and this book.”
Davidow Ponders Next Tome
Meanwhile, Bill Davidow may be getting literary again.
The co-founder of Mohr, Davidow Ventures has authored several Silicon Valley treatises, including Crushing the Competition, Marketing High Technology and The Virtual Corporation.
He’s now ruminating about his next tome. Davidow is leaning toward doing a book on how expanding rates of change impact technology business.
Back To School
After more than 20 years at 3i Group, Marten Gagen resigned as executive director in late August to go back to school. Beginning in September, Gagen was working on a master’s degree in philosophy and history at Stanford University.
He’s not your typical starving student. He received a year’s salary, or a $772,000 severance, from the London-based firm. A 3i spokesman told The Times of London that the payoff was justified even though Gagen had been seeking a lifestyle change. The company “accelerated the timetable he was on,” said Michael Queen, 3i’s finance director. “He is being compensated for that.” Queen denied there was any ill feeling between Gagen and Philip Yea, 3i’s new CEO, a position Gagen may have coveted following the retirement earlier this year of Brian Larcombe.