Being Global Requires Understanding, Not Just Presence

This week I was pleased to be a member of the San Francisco audience in a private equity roadshow for entrepreneurs. I was there as an entrepreneur grooming myself to become investment-ready. The event was produced by a global investing network that stressed we must exercise due diligence before getting involved with a venture.

Warming up the crowd, the founder of the entire network announced the opening of its new Israeli branch.

He asked us, "Does anyone here speak Israeli?"

That's not global.

Local, regional, geographic, ethnic culture should be an aspect of your own due diligence when you’re a global operator, if for no other reason than to be personally aware.

I take from this experience the lesson that even investors who are planning to make equity commitments in the wider world need a lot of help understanding it.

Doing Capitalism In The Innovation Economy With Bill Janeway & Tim O'Reilly

Happy to attend O'Reilly Media founder Tim O'Reilly's book launch event for venture capitalist Bill Janeway's Doing Capitalism in the Innovation Economy at the  SOMA offices of Code for America, described by GOOD magazine as "the Peace Corps for geeks." Legendary web browser engineer, entrepreneur and investor Marc Andreessen has described the book as "essential to anyone who wants to understand technology and how its creation will be financed for decades to come."

Code for America founder Jen Pahlka interviewed Janeway for the lunchtime networking event where I ran into Twitter acquaintance and director of Deloitte's Center for the Edge John Hagel, the author of the prescient The Power of Pull: How Small Moves, Smartly Made, Can Set Big Things in Motion.

The white leather couches are pretty bad, too.