Wall Street Journal Opinion Column: Don’t Strangle Venture Capital With Miles of Red Tape

admin — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 15:03:17 +0000

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.

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Wall Street Journal Opinion Column: Don’t Strangle Venture Capital With Miles of Red Tape