Fred Wilson Quotes

If you have an idea that you can't get out of your head, do a startup. Otherwise join a startup.

Ideas that most people derided as ridiculous have produced the best outcomes. Don't do the obvious thing.

I generally blog between 5:30 A.M. and 7 A.M. I will from time to time add something during the day, but for the most part blogging is an early morning activity for me.

The fact is that the amount of money startups raise in their seed and Series A rounds is inversely correlated with success

Markets come and go. Good business don't.

Building product is not about having a large team to manage. It is about having a small team with the right people on it.

The companies that do the best job on managing a user's privacy will be the companies that ultimately are the most successful.

Early in a startup, product decisions should be hunch driven. Later on, product decisions should be data driven.

Investing in management means building communication systems, business processes, feedback, and routines that let you scale the business and team as efficiently as possible.

I think 'crazy' is a compliment. I think you make money with people who are crazy.

I'm really interested in the intersection between reputation, identity, and knowledge.

Equity capital is expensive. Every time you do a raise, you dilute.

Foursquare's adoption of a game dynamic when it launched is a particularly clever implementation of a social hook.

Money is information, like bits.

Startups are rapidly changing systems. If you use an annual review cycle, you aren't getting feedback at the same pace that you need to adapt and change the business.

I believe Android will be stronger in the developing world than it is in the developed world.

The more entrepreneurs in the world that are getting their ideas financed, the more great companies there are going to be that we can all invest in.

Board meetings should not be for the benefit of the board. They should be for the benefit of the CEO and the senior team.

When I see people laughing at ideas and companies we have backed, I smile. It means we are going to make a lot of money on that investment.

When my dad was in Vietnam, we lost a parent for a year. Thank God we didn't lose a parent for good.

All markets have boom and bust cycles, and I think venture capital market has even more exaggerated boom and bust cycles.

Profiles aren't journalism.

People already love to play casual games. But when you take a casual game and stick it inside a social network, it becomes way more exciting.

Not only do you have to put yourself in harms way in service of your country, you have to leave your families at home. It is a great sacrifice.

Not acknowledging that beauty is complex-that's the problem. I enjoy making it complex for people, because that's my world.

There are so many startups out there raising money. I don't think this is a bad thing. It's a good thing. Entrepreneurship is in vogue. Innovators are innovating. Makers are making.

I don't like to talk about myself. I like to talk about stuff that's happening, stuff that's going to happen, and the people who are going to make it happen.

Many artists stick to making and hire a manager to focus on their business. Artists that build websites and mobile apps can do that, too.

The strategy of Tumblr is very elegant.. The atomic unit of user experience is the same as the ads.

Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.

Being an entrepreneur is hard. Having supportive and caring investors helps.

Most adults I know start their Internet session at Google, and most kids I know start their Internet session at either Facebook or MySpace.

Blog-based businesses have lower cost structures and are more 'authentic,' and as a result are drawing larger shares of ad budgets.

Skyping with your spouse works well enough, but apparently it is hard to get the kids to hang out on Skype for long.

The entire world is now a rival to Silicon Valley. No country, state, region, nor city has a lock on innovation in technology anymore.

To see things differently requires you to be wired a little differently.

There is a difference between hiring a CEO and turning over control of the business.

I'm a free speech bigot. I don't like censorship; I just don't think it's a good thing.

I would like to reiterate that I don't want any profiles of me. I am not newsworthy.

If you want to create something great and do it faster than the competition, you need to be action oriented.

Facebook is not an unstoppable juggernaut. There are a lot of other things people can do on the web.

Games are the most social of all things on the web.

Given New York City's cultural diversity, it has always attracted creative people.

If you want to unleash more creativity in your company, you need to allow for a little contamination. It is the sand in the oyster that creates the pearl.

Don't try to solve the entire problem on day one.

The Internet is a computing platform built on top of core technology. Applied technology is what gets built on top of that: It's Web services.

It's upsetting to me that you have to be a millionaire to invest in your friend's start-up.

I use beauty as a way of helping people to receive difficult or upsetting ideas. The topical issues are merely a vehicle for making one aware of one's own perceptual shift-which is the real thrill.