Editor’s Note: This post was originally published on Seattle 2.0, and imported to GeekWire as part of our acquisition of Seattle 2.0 and its archival content. For more background, see this post.
By Matt Hulett
Last weekend I did a post on AlwaysOn, entitled “Would Abe Lincoln Successfully Raise Venture Capital Today? The theme of the post was inspired by a post on Xconomy Seattle. I basically take the position that the Northwest is too conservative in the way they approach investments and are weary of entrepreneurs that have failed. My position which seems to be supported by other entrepreneurs in the Xconomy post is that Silicon Valley attracts more entrepreneurs since their attitudes are around funding big ideas versus big company track records.
So, given recent news of big company layoffs, including 5,000 by Microsoft over the next 18 months, it got me to thinking: Can individuals from big companies make successful entrepreneurs? It’s certainly possible. I personally know successful entrepreneurs that have come from big companies but I must admit that I have a bias against a large company employee that is interested in working at startup. Historically, I’ve seen my fair share of fit issues that you don’t see from someone that is used to be scrappy and self-directed. It is sometimes difficult to teach an old dog new tricks. With all of the layoffs that we have seen recently from big to small companies, will we see a resurgence in entrepreneurs? And if so, can these folks from large organization like Microsoft morph into startups as entrepreneurs? What do you think?
