Scoble riffs on Dave Winer’s wishes for the venture capital industry with The “ventures” we need…. It’s a top 10 (OK, 11) list, but #7 reaches too far.
7) Venture ideas. I’ve hung around the industry now to realize that there are a few people who generate far better and far more ideas than anyone else. Microsoft has one of those guys. His name is Eric Horvitz. He owns the most patents at Microsoft and I believe he has about twice the number of the person who is in the #2 spot. Now, you probably couldn’t afford him full time (I’m sure that other multi-billion-dollar companies even regularly bid against us for his time) but you might be able to, say, rent Dave Winer or Steve Wozniak or, even, Matt Mullenweg, to come out and give you some ideas for a day. So, “venture IG’s” (Idea Generators) will be sought after.
Ideas are not what’s lacking. Execution, talent, stubbornness, focus, and leadership are the currency, in combination, which convert into excellent businesses. Ideas are sprinkled, for free, throughout the industry. Yes, having an idea first counts for something… a slim head start. Not much more.
The rest of the list is a reasonable extrapolation of where things might go. But let’s remember that people (and their organizations) don’t change as fast as the technologies which make this type of “venture” possible.