EPIC CLASH : Recap Dave McClure vs Jason Fried

Image by Adrian Whelan via Flickr

Story that spans for last couple of weeks have turned out to be EPIC CLASH! I have great respect for both sides and can understand both views and try to find my own path by learning from their experience.

Jason's movement got me with speech at Startup School 2008, where it was stated that one should enjoy present life and not wait for future moment that will come to enjoy.Plus, don't take money from Venture Capitalists - bootstrap it! So epic!

Dave McClure doesn't need special introduction. Shortly. Has been one of most influential VC in Valley. Transparent on every issue. Developer from 80s that made right investments in Web2.0 and always opened for any investment opportunity. 13th most followed VC blogger, but deserves much better spot.

It all begun with Mint acquisition 3 weeks ago and Jason's reaction on 37signals blog stating that Mint acquisition was purely VC driven. This triggered ton of reactions, reblogging and deeper analysis.

Person that was upset the most with Jason's reaction was McClure - person that invested in Mint one month before acquisition. Meaning, that he and Funders Fund were not satisfied with M&A return. It perfectly makes sense that Mint acquisition was not driven by Series C players.

Story was shortly interrupted by Twitter $1 billion valuation. But, only to cause another sarcastic blog post by Fried, where he stated that his company is valuated $100 billion using this formula:


[(Twitter followers x Facebook fans) + (# of employees x 1000)] x (RSS subscribers + daily page views) + (monthly burn rate x Google’s stock price)2


Awesome!

Finally McClure replied with huge post where he put everything he felt at moment. McClure might be using inappropriate ton and he is a little harsh, but he's transparent as ever.

Final thought would be that McClure was one that was against Mint M&A, Jason Fried certainly hit the right buttons and upset VC world ... for a moment.