O'Leary: Business books are nauseatingly predictable and should be half a page
Ciaran O'Leary · 20VC: The Three Fundamental Forces in Society with Ciaran O'Leary, Partner @ BlueYard · Mar 16, 2016 · at 20:30
Ciaran O'Leary, Partner at BlueYard, responds to a quickfire question about his favorite book during an interview with 20VC host Harry Stebbings.
0:00 / 0:09exact quote · 9.1s
720p mp4 · rendered on demand · StarZero watermark
“I hate reading business books. I think they are nauseatingly predictable, and they should be half a page instead of 200 pages, so you're not going to hear a business book from me.”
quote is from the automated transcript, cleaned for reading: filler sounds and stutters are removed, nothing is rephrased. names can be misheard (the analysis reads context, assessments check outside sources). how →
More from Ciaran O'Leary
O'Leary: BlueYard will never raise a growth fund or expand geographically
“Blue Yard is always going to be a small firm, everybody's always going to be equal we're only ever going to have one strategy and one fund, and we're only ever going to have one office, and we're always going to focus on early stage, we're never going to raise…”
O'Leary: Large venture capital fund sizes prevent genuine early-stage focus
“I think for entrepreneurs, what is a good guide is always looking at the fund size. So you can say that you're an early stage firm or you focus on early stage, but if you You've got this huge, big fund, you know, it will never be it can never be a core part of…”
O'Leary: Most VC firms fail by trying to build a legacy brand
“Assume that with Blue Yard, we have to leave some kind of lasting legacy and brand. Cause that's where a majority of VC firms fail.”
O'Leary: Early-stage startups often fail by hiring senior executives too early
“The one thing that the board should hopefully protect you from and have, give you good guidance is on hiring the wrong people, or sorry, the right people too early, because sometimes you can bring in somebody who really only works well if they have 50 engineer…”
O'Leary: Great European startups will always be acquired by global capital
“No, because the capital is global, highly mobile. The biggest occurs in Europe are Google, Microsoft, SAP, and I don't care. And now Chinese companies Chinese companies, Japanese companies, I think that that makes it less of a problem. So big companies will be…”