Editor’s note: Massachusetts, in the eyes of Highland Capital Partners co-founder and general partner Paul Maeder, has three problems with its startup engine. That’s okay, because Maeder has three solutions.
Maeder outlined both the problems and the solutions in a talk at the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council’s annual meeting on Feb. 27—providing a slide-by-slide analysis of the Bay State and how it can best compete with archrival California. He didn’t write up the talk, which brought to light several factors that have often gone undiscussed or at least are under appreciated in all the recent arguments and angst surrounding the Massachusetts vs. Silicon Valley question. But he agreed to share his PowerPoint.
Here’s a quick peek at what it contains:
Problem No. 1: California Always Outperforms Massachusetts
Problem No. 2: Is Everyone in the Game? (Hint: Think Harvard and this piece by Xconomist Chris Gabrieli)
Problem No. 3: What’s Government Doing?
You’ll have to view Maeder’s presentation to get the solutions.
Maeder, who also addressed much the same subject at Xconomist Vinit Nijhawan’s recent workshop on Exploring Regional Venture Capital Models, welcomes your views in the comments section below.
Author: Paul Maeder
Paul Maeder is a co-founder and general partner at Highland Capital Partners in Lexington, MA. Paul invests in Information Technology companies at every stage of development. He has more than 32 years of software experience and more than 24 years in venture capital. Paul currently serves on the boards of Avidyne, Bit9, BlueTarp Financial, Cyren Call, Imprivata, Predictive Biosciences, StreamBase Systems, Vertica and Village Ventures. Paul also serves on the Board of Directors of the National Venture Capital Association.
Paul is a former director of Avid Technology, CheckFree, Chipcom, HighGround Systems (acquired by Sun Microsystems), Mainspring (acquired by IBM), Relicore (acquired by Symantec), SCH (acquired by Legato Systems), SQA (acquired by Rational Corporation), Sybase (Nasdaq: SYBS), VistaPrint (Nasdaq: VPRT)and WebLine Communications (acquired by Cisco Systems).
Before co-founding Highland, Paul was a general partner at a Boston-based venture capital partnership where he concentrated on software investments. Prior to entering venture capital, he held operating positions for six years in high-growth technology companies.
Paul is an avid skier, ocean sailor, and flies a homebuilt plane as both an ultralight and commercial pilot.
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