14 brilliant venture capitalists you need to be listening to right now

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■14 brilliant venture capitalists you need to be listening to right now

• Nathan McAlone

Michael Kovac/Getty Images for Vanity Fair

To succeed in venture capital, you can’t just throw your money at companies and wait.

The best venture capitalists provide insight and support that can make the difference between a startup failing or succeeding. And, perhaps unsurprisingly, many VCs don't leave that advice-giving at the office, and choose to dispense their thoughts to the masses — on Twitter or on personal blogs.

But not all of them are created equal. It's boring to listen to a VC brag about all the big wins, or pretend like they’ve never had an off day. The ones you should be listening to are the ones that share everything: their hits, their misses, when they think the market is great, and when they're scared or worried.

The following 14 venture capitalists are those type of writers, and have all thrown an extensive amount of their thoughts onto the internet. They also have the credentials to back up their assertions. Here are the venture capitalists you should be keeping up with.                           

Ben Horowitz

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Ben Horowitz is the co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, the buzziest firm in Silicon Valley. Before that, he co-founded Opsware, which was acquired by Hewlett-Packard for $1.6 billion. Horowitz, whose firm invested in startup Genius (formerly Rap Genius), is an avid rap aficionado, and starts posts on his blog (titled Ben’s Blog) with rap lyrics. Here’s a recent one from Rick Ross: “I’m into distribution, I’m like Atlantic. I got them mutherf**ers flying across the Atlantic.” Follow him on Twitter.

Paul Graham

Flickr/pragdave

Paul Graham was the co-founder of Viaweb, which he sold to Yahoo! in the late 90s, but he’s most famous for co-founding seed capital firm Y Combinator. YC normally gives $120,000 in seed money to startups in return for advice, connections, and 7% equity. Graham is active on Twitter, but his real wisdom comes out in his essays, which are catalogued on his blog. His latest is about changing your startup’s name.

Brad Feld

Helen H. Richardson / Contributor

Brad Feld has been an early stage investor and entrepreneur since well before the dot-com crash. Feld has been part of big successes and big failures in his career, the latter of which he speaks about very candidly on his blog, Feld Thoughts. As a co-founder of Foundry Group, Mobius Venture Capital, and Intensity Ventures, he has invested in companies like Zynga, MakerBot, and Fitbit. Feld is also a co-founder of Techstars, one of the most prominent startup accelerators in the country. Follow him on Twitter.

Mark Suster

Business Insider

Mark Suster joined Upfront Ventures as a partner in 2007 after selling his second company, Koral, to Salesforce. As a two-time entrepreneur and now a venture capitalist, Suster says he knows “both sides of the table,” which is the name of his prominent blog. Suster focuses on early-stage companies, usually Series A, but his blog offers advice from ideas to exits. Follow him on Twitter.

Sam Altman

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Sam Altman might be only 30, but the president of Y Combinator has a wealth of experience in how to help coach a successful startup. Companies that Y Combinator has invested in as a seed stage accelerator have now topped $30 billion and includes Airbnb, Dropbox, Stripe, and Reddit. Altman have even taught a class at Stanford called “How to Start a Startup” — which you can access online. Altman writes many of his public thoughts on Twitter, but also keeps a blog. A recent post looked back on every life advice he’d have for others on his thirtieth birthday.

Fred Wilson

REUTERS/Lucas Jackson

As co-founder of Union Square Ventures, a NYC venture capital firm, Fred Wilson has invested in companies like Twitter, Etsy, and Kickstarter. But perhaps more impressive than his investing record is that Wilson has fastidiously kept his blog, A VC, going on a daily basis since September, 2003. “This is my diary, my sandbox, my therapist, and more than anything it is my bar where I get to be the bartender,” he writes. “A VC is a place where everyone is welcome and the conversation is civil and lively.” Check out his daily musings here or on Twitter.

Chris Dixon

Chris Dixon is not only a general partner at Andreessen Horowitz, but also an immensely successful personal investor. Dixon co-founded web security startup SiteAdvisor, which was acquired by McAfee in 2006, and Hunch, which was bought by eBay for a reported $80 million. He’s personally invested in success stories like Kickstarter, Warby Parker, Pinterest, Codeacademy, and Stripe. Dixon doesn’t post as frequently as some other VC bloggers, but his post are always a good mix of technical and easy to understand. Follow him on Twitter.

Bill Gurley

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Bill Gurley, a general partner at Benchmark, has experience on in both Silicon Valley and Wall Street. He currently sits on the board of behemoths like Uber, Zillow, OpenTable, and GrubHub. He made waves earlier this year by warning that the tech industry could see the death of a few high-profile billion-dollar “unicorns” before the year is out. Read his thoughts on his blog, Above the Crowd, or follow him on Twitter.

Jalak Jobanputra

Getty

In a venture capital world that has traditionally been dominated by white men, Jalak Jobanputra stands out. This founding partner of FuturePerfect Ventures in NYC grew up in Nairobi, Kenya to parents of Indian descent. She’s been a venture capitalist since 1999 and keeps a popular blog on investing called The Barefoot VC. Follow her on Twitter.

Fred Destin

Flickr/Robin Wauters

Destin has been a partner at Accel Partners in London since late last year, but before that he spent 10 years as a partner at Atlas. He also has years of experience in finance (structured derivatives in particular) at Goldman Sachs and other places. Destin’s blog is called Open Source Venture Capital, and as a bonus, all his posts are illustrated with beautiful fractals. He says it represents “how unpredictable success is and by how truly chaotic conditions under which startups grow can be.” Follow him on Twitter.

Marc Andreessen

REUTERS/Phil McCarten

Before Marc Andreessen was the co-founder of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, he changed the tech landscape as the co-founder of Netscape. As a venture capitalist, he was a seed investor in both Twitter and Facebook. Andreessen is a prolific tweeter, re-tweeter, and tweet-stormer. Though he doesn’t write his blog anymore, you can peruse the archives as an ebook.You can also check out his current offerings on his firm’s blog, or follow him on Twitter.

Hunter Walk

Fortune Live Media

Hunter Walk is a partner at Homebrew, a seed stage venture capital fund. But before that he led consumer product management at YouTube, and worked in product for Google and virtual world, Second Life. The tagline of his blog is 99% humble, 1% brag, and Walk brings this relaxed honesty to his writings. Follow him on Twitter.

Andrew Chen

Flickr/randy stewart

Andrew Chen is an investor and advisor for startups like ZenPayroll, Dropbox, and Product Hunt, and his writings are some of the most insightful in the business. He’s earned big fans like Marc Andreessen and 500 Startup’s Dave McClure, and PayPal’s Max Levchin. He covers a large assortment of topics, but is especially adept at speaking to web marketing. Sign up for his newsletter here, or follow him on Twitter.

Chris Sacca

YouTube/Kevin Rose

Chris Sacca heads up Lowercase Capital, and is famous for early investments in tech companies like Twitter, Uber, and Instagram. He is one of the most vocal venture capitalists on many issues, most recently what direction Twitter should take. Before Lowercase, Sacca was the head of special initiatives at Google. He can usually be spotted in his signature cowboy shirt. Follow him on Twitter. 

/ from: http://www.businessinsider.com