It had been quite a week for Union Square Ventures' Fred Wilson. First, WallStrip, an online finance video startup that Wilson had invested in, was sold to CBS just nine months after launch. Then, credible rumors emerged that FeedBurner, an RSS technology company backed by Union Square Ventures, is in talks to be acquired by Google for $100 million.
But, the run of good fortune took an abrupt turn when The Washington Post ran a story about people being inundated with more e-mail messages than they can handle and declaring 'e-mail bankruptcy' as a result. In it, Fred Wilson is mentioned in the lead paragraph as someone who attracted a lot of attention last month when he declared e-mail bankruptcy. But, a Carnegie Mellon professor quoted in the story didn't think it was so funny:
"For a venture capitalist to say something like this -- he should get out of the technology field."
Clearly, Wilson's record suggests otherwise. If he never turned another computer on, he'd still have the right to be in the 'technology field.' Exits from portfolio companies such as GeoCities, TheStreet.com and many others have afforded him that. But, Wilson didn't just brush the criticism off. Despite some impressive successes this week, he seemed more ticked off by the professor's remarks than anything.
To read Wilson's response to The Washington Post article, see:
A VC
Technorati tags: fred+wilson, vc, venture+capital
Continue reading below
