08 Apr Start-Up Gets Course in Survival
In October, when Wall Street was already wallowing in the financial crisis, many in the technology industry still thought they might be insulated from the worst of it.
Sequoia Capital, the venture capital firm that backed Google, Yahoo and YouTube, scared them straight when it hastily gathered the chief executives of the 100 American companies in its portfolio for a stark wake-up call that rocked Silicon Valley as well as start-ups elsewhere.
The venture capitalists showed a slide show titled “R.I.P. Good Times” that began with a graphic photo of a dead pig with a butcher knife jabbed in its head. For start-ups, they said, it would be the survival of the quickest — the quickest to cut costs and get profitable.
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