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Yes, the kid is in a pretty cool position given his youth and in no way do I mean to slight his accomplishments, but there are a few things to remember:
-If you actually bother to follow-up on the Alsop-Louie site you'll see there are very clearly separate tabs between the "Team" and the "Campus Associates." It's an intriguing strategy to be sure, having college kids hang out at top schools to get the first cuts at all their friends' companies while at the same time training your incoming class before they graduate, but if you're able to do the job while concurrently enrolled at a top school, it's not the same thing as being a full-time Venture Associate.
-Even if it were a more full-status Venture Associate role, this accomplishment is almost irrelevant by Valley standards. In a place where programs like the Thiel fellowship (in which members of the first class have already made massive solar panel improvements, boot-strapped electric cars, started a biotech VC fund, and created an education startup that raised a massive brand-name Series A) are trumped by the mere fact that there are celebrity Billionaires who haven't turned 30 yet, breaking into the support-side of the business as 1 of 5 glorified part-time employees is not worth blistering your hands over.
-Finally, I'll reiterate that his trajectory is indeed impressive, but I would caution against putting him on a pedestal like this. Sitting around ruminating in envy about how awesome it would be if you were in that position is incredibly unproductive. Read his story and think about how you're just taking your time so that you can do something that trumps the shit out of this dude. Don't be jealous of anyone who works hard to get where he is.
I'm not gonna hate on the kid because it is an accomplishment, but he's hardly a VC associate. He's really a member of the growing legion of VC "scouts", a la Sequoia and Andreessen Horowitz:
http://pandodaily.com/2012/05/04/sequoia-confirms-existence-of-stealth-…
http://pandodaily.com/2012/05/08/andreessen-horowitz-confirms-its-scout…
Not to take anything away from the kid, but his function is to bird-dog early stage start-ups happening in dorm rooms, despite what the company tells him or allows him to call himself.
Is this a sign of the VC industry approaching market equilibrium (demand = VC, supply = start ups)? Firms are looking for ways to identify potential opportunities earlier and earlier. The number of firms and amount of money in funds is increasing. Is the supply of investment grade start-ups increasing at the same rate or faster?
How would you consider this for being an actual VC?
http://www.uventurefund.com/
[quote=Not not a boutique]How would you consider this for being an actual VC?
http://www.uventurefund.com/[/quote]
UFV is great. I've worked with them and I am friends with their founder. It's an amazing program. Their model is to do due diligence usually free of charge for the right to co-invest out of their fund with an established investor. It was extremely successful in their first fund and I've heard they have closed a second one (granted that info is dated now).
The way they bring in students is great and for multi-semester rotations. Companies like Goldman usually have standing offers for it's graduates. Another cool org to check out started by the same founder is the UIF - http://www.uimpactfund.com/. I wish I had bee in a region to participate in it while in college - unfortunately I went to school on the east coast.
Bit of an afterthought, but for further reading, I just wanted to direct you fellas to this Quora post which was almost definitely the impetus for Alex Banayan's article yesterday: http://www.quora.com/Venture-Capital/How-did-these-young-people-qualify…
In it, you'll see that the top answer is actually by Stewart Alsop (of Alsop Louie Partners, the kid's firm), who elaborates on the hiring rationale a bit:
These kids don't necessarily have experience in the normal VC sense of having seen a lot of deals or run companies, but they have a lot better insight into the mind of the tech-savvy early adopter 20 yo mind than a 50 yo does. That give them a perspective that most partners at the VC funds don't have, which can be valuable when evaluating new companies/ideas. I'm in my mid-30's, have a ton of experience in tech and have no idea what college kids today are thinking about.
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