Venture funds return to Net – The Boston Globe
The "Google Effect" in Boston-area VC. Sort of akin to the Microsoft Effect in the early 90s — if the entrepreneur can’t convincingly cast the strategy out from beneath the shadow of the industry behemoth, then don’t bother asking.
I ran into the "Outlook Effect" in the winter of 2004 while raising funds for a startup focused on collaboration web-services for the SMB market. Every VC had a short-sighted Outlook obsession. How long before they shift that to an AJAX obsession?
The Google-Factor paints most decisions in my media world these days, but intuitively I have to agree with IDG CEO Pat Kenealy’s cynical assessment that Google is to 2005 what AOL was to 1999 — a looming behemoth that will be replaced by another looming behemoth as surely as it will snow in January in Framingham.
"But when entrepreneurs come calling at venture firms these days, foraging for money to bankroll Internet start-ups, they can expect to be grilled about their approach to the fast-growing Google, which boasts a market value of about $90 billion and more than $7 billion in cash."