I love Felda Hardymon- I have a little notepad which contains gems of Hardymonism from his HBS classes. His firm came up with the anti-Portfolio which the list of all of the dumb decisions and great deals BVP passed up on. Some of my favorites include:
- E-Bay: ""Stamps? Coins? Comic books? You've GOT to be kidding," thought Cowan. "No-brainer pass.""
- PayPal: "David Cowan passed on the Series A round. Rookie team, regulatory nightmare, and, 4 years later, a $1.5 billion acquisition by eBay."
- and finally, Google: "Cowan’s college friend rented her garage to Sergey and Larry for their first year. In 1999 and 2000 she tried to introduce Cowan to “these two really smart Stanford students writing a search engine”. Students? A new search engine? In the most important moment ever for Bessemer’s anti-portfolio, Cowan asked her, “How can I get out of this house without going anywhere near your garage?”"
