Kara Visits AlwaysOn’s Venture Summit East!
by Kara Swisher
Posted on April 9, 2008 at 12:05 AM PT
Yesterday, I moderated a panel at AlwaysOn’s Venture Summit East in Boston, called “Is There Still Upside in the Internet?”
Short answer: Always and forever, as long as there are venture capitalists with bags of other people’s money and enough rat holes to shove the cash down!
In all seriousness, it was a great discussion, centering on the lack of exit for start-ups via IPO, the slowing down of the M&A scene and a need to build businesses that have strong revenue outlooks.
As to hype? Social networking, of course! And underhyped? Mobile.
The panelists included: David Kidder, CEO, Clickable; Waikit Lau, Co-Founder, ScanScout; Bob Davis, General Partner, Highland Capital Partners; David Beisel, VP, Venrock; and, one of my personal favorite VCs and charmingest Yahoo (YHOO) board member, Eric Hippeau, Managing Director, Softbank Capital.
I gave Hippeau a teeny hard time about the MicroHoo situation (essentially, WTF!!?). He deftly ignored me and made the most salient point of the panel about the continuing transformative power of the Web.
(Thus, shaming me for my tiny-minded, here-and-now focus! Well, I was only ashamed just for a second, but it was a really long second!)
Here’s the video with interviews with Hippeau and others, including conference organizer Tony Perkins:
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