I know you don’t believe in chasing other markets which I think is why, historically, we’ve had poor startup performance locally. Copying companies in other markets isn’t a fast follower technique, it’s a lemming approach to startups.

And I think we both agree that going “back” to the way Atlanta was won’t work either. How many huge success did we have “before”? That I can remember just two - MindSpring and ISS (I’m of course speaking in the post-web era, I know we had many successes in other industries way before that). Although I was told the other day that the early angel investors in MindSpring were crushed out in later rounds of financing. That isn’t a stage that will sustain local startups nor is it something I want to get back to.

In the end, I think we’re both saying the same thing - just with different words.

Dangit. :-)

Sanjay

Either you misunderstood my post, or I did a really crappy job of articulating myself (which has been known to happen on more than one occasion).

I’m not chasing Silicon Valley, or any other region. As I’ve blogged about before, that is a pipe dream (and a waste of energy). But I do believe (as do you and many others) that Atlanta is a very “under-served” market.

My goal is to do what little bit I can to help push us to where we need to be, and that is the nexus where innovation and capital converge - wherever that may be on the curve. I honestly believe that we are absolutely nowhere near maximizing the level of innovation here. In order to that, it requires attacking the problem in a multitude of ways. As I mentioned during the Angel Lounge event, part of our charter is to also help educate entrepreneurs here, to better align their expectations with reality, but also to do what we can to turn the current reality into something better.

That also involves attacking the artificial cultural barriers that can sometime rear their ugly heads … hence, my references and thoughts regarding past efforts.

You do get 10 points for using the word “dangit”, though! :)

Cheers.
Scott