F.ounders, the highly prestigious event we called the Rolls Royce of technology events, is here in NY today for its first non-Dublin event, bringing together 100′s of highly noteworthy entrepreneurs and investors at the NASDAQ MarketSite.
Right now, Eric Hippeau of Lerer Ventures, Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures, Bob McCooey of NASDAQ, Rich Miner of Google Ventures and Anthony Noto of Goldman Sachs are all on stage for a panel by the name of “The road to IPO – Who’s next?”
I think you can guess what the first question was.
Fred Wilson of Union Square Ventures says that we should expect something that looks more that Salesforce than Facebook, with an enterprise-level of revenue predictability. Rich Miner of Google Ventures says he agrees Wilson, but further down the road he’s looking forward to companies that leverage crowd-sourced workforces.
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When asked about the ideal time to go public, Anthony Noto of Goldman Sachs said that if your businesses is in the middle of a transition, it’s a bad time to IPO. He says that it’s important to be modest, because when you go public you become public forever. Wilson commented that “if you want to make your company your life’s work, go public. If you are looking for an exit, public is not the way to go.”
Of course, nobody on this panel wants to name names of actual companies — likely because their inside connections wouldn’t make for much of a fair guess.
Stay tuned for more from today’s event, which counts Steve Case, David Karp, Chad Dickerson and Fred Wilson as speakers, to name a few. To learn more about F.ounders and last year’s event, check out our full review here.
All images courtesy of Livestream
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