“There was a time when every VC on Sand Hill proudly carried the latest, greatest Palm Pilot. No self-respecting VC would be caught without one. And for good reason. Suddenly VCs could carry their calendars with them (no need to print out a pesky piece of paper) and have their contacts at their fingertips. It was a huge improvement over the status quo and increased the efficiency of VCing greatly,” Hornik writes. “Plus, it just looked cool when you pulled out your Palm Pilot at a board meeting. It said to everyone at the meeting, ‘Hey, I’m on top of all this tech crap and I have the tools necessary to be a world class VC, so check me out.'”
Hornik writes, “Fast forward a decade and that tool of choice for the VC world is the iPad. Since its launch, the iPad has taken over the board room. I have not attended a single board meeting since the day the iPad shipped in which at least one iPad wasn’t present. Ok, that’s not exactly a fair measure, given that I have carried my iPad to every board meeting since launch. But I am not alone. In nearly every board meeting I attend, multiple iPads are unfurled. In a recent board meeting, after every VC in the room pulled out his iPad 3G in matching black Apple case, one of the entrepreneurs in the room noted, ‘I take it the iPad is the new board room toy of choice.’ Indeed, it is.”
Read more in the full article here.
[Thanks to MacDailyNews Reader “Edward W.” for the heads up.]
Looks like it might not be a ‘hobby’ much longer.
Sorry it interrupt but, just what is a VC and where’s Sand Hill Road. Personally, it sounds like a place I’d like to avoid because of the creatures inhabiting it.
‘I take it the iPad is the new board room toy of choice.’
It should say tool not toy.
oops i commented in the wrong window. DOH. (delete)
@ Bream Rockmetteller
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sand_Hill_Road
@Bream Rockmetteller Venture Capitalist? Just a guess; I have no idea…
VC=Venture Capitalist
Sand Hill Road = the street where many of the founding Venture Capitalists are located.
The “toy” comment irks me. I work in IT, and those who deride Apple usually do so by referring to its products as toys. To them, PCs are for real work, Macs are just for playing with; fun as they may be, they have little purpose. As cliniclatechmaster said, it should be called a tool, not a toy.
</rant>
@MrMcLargeHuge
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I agree, but I especially wanted to point out that I have to laugh every time I read your name. It’s just the best I’ve seen…cracks me up!
@MrMcLargeHuge,
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It’s also ironic that you said “tool”.
submission errors galore…
Sand Hill Road is the epicenter of Venture Capital funding in our Universe. Nothing ANYWHERE comes close…yet. More risks are taken on Sand Hill Road every day than in an entire WSoP tournament… well, that’s an exaggeration… but the immense capital and idea flow emanating from there is not! EVERY SINGLE THING between ME typing this now and YOU reading it, wherever you are, was in some way (if not entirely) funded by VCs on Sand Hill Road.
I remember when we had to take out the VC on Sand Hill. I can still hear the choppers…
Let’s hope some board member isn’t using the “death grip” on the iPad too or we’ll never hear the end of it.
@Spudly – great, now we have to figure-out what WSoP is!
WtF is WSoP?
wait, don’t tell me, IDGaS*.
*I don’t give a shit.
… but then we left and they came back the next day.
@ Macromancer–
Did you perhaps comment on the wrong article?
The iPad was never described as a “hobby.”
Apple only has one hobby at the moment–Apple TV.
And I suspect that will soon be changing.
Sand Hill Road where many high-tech Venture Capitalists’ offices are concentrated is just East of I-280 in West Menlo Park just north of Stanford University and Palo Alto California about 30 miles south of San Francisco and 20 miles north of San Jose in the south end of San Mateo County in the Northern California Bay Area in the United States of America on planet Earth.
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Just as I said:
The iPad: Do They *Really* Get It?
http://bit.ly/bhhcf2
RC
VC = Viet Cong.
Those iPads encased in black must look really snappy next to those black pajamas.
WSoP = World Series of Putzes.
Doesn’t anyone get out of their basements anymore?
@C1, nice one!
@ C1
Ever hear the line
“Hello, headquarters. We have met the enemy
And they have been smashed!”
from Tom Paxton’s “Talking Vietnam Potluck Blues.”?