If the Shoe Fits: Mike Rothenberg
by Miki SaxonA Friday series exploring Startups and the people who make them go. Read all If the Shoe Fits posts here
In the beginning the story of Mike Rothenberg, founder of Rothenberg Ventures, is the story of just how far a privileged background and pure chutzpah can take a 28 year-old.
“What if you could combine the service-model approach of Andreessen Horowitz, and the founder-first community building offline and online approach of First Round Capital, with the processing power and reach of Silicon Valley Angels, and the discretion of Floodgate and the judgment of Sequoia? No one else can make the claim that they are even building those pieces. That’s what we’re doing.”
But a lousy manager according to his people.
…a demanding boss who needed to sign off on all decisions including investments, yet rarely made himself available to do so.
Four years later it’s the story of how fast a privileged background, super-size chutzpah, plenty of swagger, negligent management skills and questionable actions can bring you down.
And the very gifts that enabled Rothenberg to start his fund and carve out a name for himself in the crowded valley venture scene — his youth, his Stanford and Harvard degrees, and his dense social network and splashy events — may have set the course for his fiasco.
Read the story.
Look in the mirror.
Review your track record and actions.
Eradicate any similarities.
Hat tip to Anand Sanwal for pointing me to this story.
Image credit: Hiking Artist
