The 26th Secretary of War, the Democrat and Republican (!) Senator from Pennsylvania, Simon Cameron:
Our Hero
"The honest politician is one who
when he is bought, will stay bought."
From Reuters:
Blue-chip venture-capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers expressed frustration with poor fund performance and promised to do better at gatherings for investors last month, according to people familiar with the discussions.
The firm, which has lost some of its shine recently due in part to hefty bets on green energy technology and a lack of home-run Internet investments, said it would be more careful with capital and redouble its efforts to boost performance. Several investors who received invitations to the meetings said it was unusual for Kleiner Perkins to hold such gatherings when it was not raising new funds.
"They're just frustrated and upset that the performance hasn't been as good as they think it should be, and they are candid about it," said one investor, or limited partner, who attended one of the meetings and requested anonymity.
The message was "we're not naïve. We get it," said the investor. "We're going to work our ass off."
A spokeswoman for Kleiner Perkins said: "Communications between Kleiner Perkins and its limited partners are private and confidential. As such, we do not comment on them."Kleiner partner Al Gore is probably not as concerned by the recent results as John Doerr. Al just pocketed a nine-figure profit by selling his Current TV stake to Qatar-oil-money backed Al Jazeera.
The 41-year-old firm built a reputation by backing technology titans such as Amazon.com Inc, Netscape and Sun Microsystems, but recent investments in Zynga Inc, Groupon Inc and other companies have worked out less well....MORE
