I guess when you are Sequoia, you can hold a big public media-attended meeting where you display a faux tombstone ominously announcing the death of the Good Times. My approach has to be a little bit different. The investments that I am making, both at Accelerator and OVP Venture Partners, are generally years from accessing public markets or being acquired, so current market conditions are not high on my list of considerations. Great technologies emerge in both bull and bear markets, and if I am sitting on the sidelines now that leaves a hole in my portfolio 3-5 years from now. What if that is the midst of the decade’s greatest bull market? Or not? I have no way to forecast that. So from an investment side, I have to treat this as pretty much business as usual.
On the cash conservation side, we preach that gospel in any market. To say that we would pay more attention to it now is to say that we are more careless with cash at other times. That is not the case – cash is king in any market, and my investors expect me to behave that way at all times.
