What's fascinating is that his remarks about the corporate VCs come in the context of a mistake story. Fred is so passionate about what he learned from his mistakes working with corporate VC partners that he goes a bit over the top when Sarah Lacy, the interviewer, probes:
Fred: I have made, since then, a few mistakes, for example investing with corporate venture capital firms, corporate investors. Never, ever, ever, ever gonna to do that again. Never, ever. Ever. Never!
Sarah: What happened?
Fred: They SUCK! Because they're not interested in the company's success or the entrepreneur's success. Corporations exist to maximize their interests. They could never be mensch-y or magnanimous. It's not in their DNA. And so they SUCK as investors....
He goes on to exempt Intel and Google from this critique, and ends with this: "That's how you should think about a corporation. They're your exit, not your partner."
But the initial emphasis must have caused some blowback, because today's post contains this apology:
I apologize to all of the corporate venture firms that I insulted on Thursday night. I've got a lot of scars, deep and painful, on this topic and I let that come out in a way that was not right. I'm sorry about that.
I say, thanks, Fred, for sharing. I think he's speaking from the heart, honestly and candidly. To me, that doesn't require an apology.
