The Wall Street Journal published a combined version of  my letter to the editor in response to the Washington vs. Silicon Valley editorial of August 7 with letters from Harry Edelson (another First Boston alumnus from the ’80’s), and Ryan Phillips (whom I do not know).  My blog post of yesterday is a longer version of the letter that I sent to the editor.  Scott Austin has written a lively column today on this topic in Venture Capital Dispatch.  The opinion piece elicited 60 comments as of the date of this post covering a wide range of opinions on this important topic.

I think it’s very important that readers separate their personal feelings about venture capitalists from the capital markets issue.  Small cap IPO’s are necessary to restore job growth in America, regardless of whether they are venture backed or not.  If we don’t restore a robust market for initial public offerings of companies raising less than $50 million, America loses, and that has everything to do with promoting entrepreneurs.

Related posts:

1. “Bailing Out Wall Street” Commonwealth Club Panel Broadcast on KALW 91.7 November 11 at 7PM PST
2. Whither Venture Capital– A Constructive Perspective from the Kauffman Fellows Program
3. New Book by Professor Mannie Manhong Liu and Pascal Levensohn– Venture Capital: Theory and Practice, published by the University of International Business and Economics Press, Beijing
4. Business Week Report on “Radical Future of R&D” Misses Critical Capital Markets Link in Innovation Ecosystem
5. Alan Greenspan– From Washington to Wall Street

Tags: IPO, regulation, Silicon Valley, Wall Street Journal

This entry was posted on Thursday, August 13th, 2009 at 8:03 am and is filed under Adult Education, Entrepreneur, Innovation, Levensohn Venture Partners, VC Board Best Practices, Venture Capital. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.