Monday 15th October 2007
George Coelho
A culture of winning
Silicon Valley veteran George Coelho sheds light on why the golden state is such a great breeding ground for entrepreneurs, and why he thinks the UK might be able to emulate its success.
Silicon Valley has the best kind of immigration in the world with people coming from India, China, Britain, France and Israel. It has sunshine, great universities, a culture of making money, plus many companies that have been there and done it before.
There’s freedom to raise cash to start a business. I had a person who worked for me at Intel and came to me and said: “George, I’m leaving and I need to raise money to start my own business. Could you give me some money?” I said “yes” and wrote him a cheque. Not a huge amount, but it was a start. That night he raised £1 million just by ringing people.
They have the right bankers and investors who take a chance, mentors who’ve made money before and help bring younger people through. The whole network is right for risk taking, for changing jobs and reinventing yourself. It’s a large, English-speaking, $14 trillion (£6.87 trillion) economy. The VC system is almost overdeveloped as there’s so much cash for every stage of investment.
In the UK we tend to think we’re not good enough, which is totally false. There’s also the view that we don’t sell enough, which is probably true but that can be learnt. The culture over here is changing. As for me and what I do, I like to impose my worldview, my culture of winning.
George Coelho is general partner at VC house Balderton Capital, which has £750 million under management. An extended interview with him appears in this month’s issue of Business XL magazine.
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