Quotes from Fred Wilson

The companies that do the best job on managing a user's privacy will be the companies that ultimately are the most successful.

Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr are all 'User First, Brands Second' services. The brands are all over these services now. But for the most part, these services didn't do much to bring them. The engaged users did.

The entire world is now a rival to Silicon Valley. No country, state, region, nor city has a lock on innovation in technology anymore.

New York's niche is content, and content is becoming more valuable. Just think about what is more valuable: MTV or the cable system that you use to get MTV? Howard Stern or the radio station you use to listen to him? Ultimately, technology becomes a commodity, and content - real, true branded content - becomes more valuable.

I believe Android will be stronger in the developing world than it is in the developed world.

Blog-based businesses have lower cost structures and are more 'authentic,' and as a result are drawing larger shares of ad budgets.

It's not easy for an entrepreneur to find the time to blog. But for those who do it, it is a great tool to communicate with the various stakeholders in their business and build a reputation for thought leadership.

Venture capitalists are professional money managers. We are provided capital to invest as long as we can return it to our investors with a strong return in a reasonable amount of time. A strong return is three times cash on cash. A reasonable amount of time is ten years max.

The venture business is a bit of an apprenticeship business, so the firm I worked for didn't let me make an investment until I was 30. That was probably a very smart thing.

The best talent in the venture industry doesn't work in large companies and won't work in large companies.

Venture capital is about capturing the value between the startup phase and the public company phase.

So many folks in the venture capital business are sheep that just want to follow the herd. They are momentum investors purchasing highly illiquid investments. That is a recipe for disaster.

All markets have boom and bust cycles, and I think venture capital market has even more exaggerated boom and bust cycles.

Not acknowledging that beauty is complex-that's the problem. I enjoy making it complex for people, because that's my world.

Investing in management means building communication systems, business processes, feedback, and routines that let you scale the business and team as efficiently as possible.

Marketing is for companies who have sucky products.