> - I would suggest they're not having trouble handling email...their filtering is working just fine. You would appear to have trouble handling rejection (at least I would infer that)

No, I'm just reporting some strong evidence that they just don't read their e-mail. Or, to be more clear, apparently essentially all information technology (IT) VCs will just ignore an e-mail message saying (generic version; real version with specifics):

(1) Here is the problem we are attacking. So far it is easy to see that there is no good solution. Fairly clearly a good solution will be of high interest to over 80% of all the Internet users, work station down to smart phone, in the world.

(2) The main reason the problem has remained unsolved is that knowing how to solve the problem is a challenge. The team has a new, unique, powerful, valuable, rock solid solution that has a high technological barrier to entry.

(3) Monetization? With a few billion unique users a month, for a first cut, just run ads. For more, there is an aspect of the project that permits some especially effective ad targeting with especially good protection of user privacy.

(4) The crucial core software implementing the technology is production quality and scalable. The rest is just an especially simple front-end Web site, nearly done.

(5) Team qualifications in business, research, and software are high.

Then with 1-5, they will just ignore the contact. No response. No questions. Nothing. They just ignore it. From the claims there, we're talking $100+ billion exit value; they just ignore it. No response; just toss it into the bit bucket.

Look, we're talking a billion or more unique visitors a month and an exit value north of $100 billion, and they have no response at all. Strong evidence that they just ignore their e-mail. Leave a $20 on a sidewalk; a guy walks by; the $20 is still there; conclusion, he didn't see the $20. Or, the VC firm just didn't see the e-mail.

One reason is, US IT VCs just have never seen any such thing, that is, an IT start up where what is crucial is the 'secret sauce' technology to solve the big problem. Instead, they pursue only other ways of making money and where the technology is essentially just routine software. US IT VCs and A16Z just will not give any value to (that is, won't spend time to investigate) results of research in IT -- the DoD is awash in valuable results of such research; biotech VC will take research seriously; but US IT VCs haven't seen any big business success from such research, don't really understand research or how to evaluate it, want to pursue other ways of making money, and want just to ignore anything based on research. They just want to f'get about research. That is the obvious explanation.

Since the US IT VCs are just determined to ignore research, the flip side of that is an advantage for any project with some good research.

Net, they don't read their e-mail and won't evaluate technology.

> - I would suggest they're not having trouble handling email...their filtering is working just fine. You would appear to have trouble handling rejection (at least I would infer that)

No, the situation is just as I said: The evidence is overwhelmingly strong that they just refuse to read e-mail from someone they don't know. That's their choice.

> They don't necessarily need the deep technical expertise within their team.

Yes they do or they are at risk of missing out on possibly some of the best projects. As I made clear, for the past 10-20 years, information technology (IT) VCs have not seen big successes based on anything at the level of publishable technical research. So, they just f'get about thinking about or evaluating such work. Again, the track record and promise of such research is from DoD, NSF, NIH, etc., not IT entrepreneurs over the past 10-20 years.

Research based projects will likely remain only a tiny fraction of what US IT VCs get in their inbox, but such projects are a good bet for a few $100+ exits over the next decade. Considering how few such successes there are, ignoring such projects, especially with the example of DoD, is foolish.

For Cheriton, they were not reading just some e-mail or investing in the technology; instead, they already knew the professor and were investing in him. But professors are not nearly the only people who can do research.

> - Allow me to be clear. They are not ignoring e-mail.

No, flatly they are ignoring e-mail. Write them something short, clear, and astounding, and they just ignore it, won't read it, won't respond at all. Maybe they want an introduction. Maybe they want only other means of selecting entrepreneurs. Maybe they just are having fun pissing off entrepreneurs. Maybe they are busy enough with what they are doing now. Maybe whatever, but they ignore e-mail. Sorry 'bout that, but they do.

> - You seem to keep missing the obvious point of perhaps they evaluated the technology you seem to be so bunched up about...and didn't care for it.

Nonsense. For the technology in question, there is likely and apparently only one person in the world who knows it. Send A16Z a high level view, and they ignore the communications. They make no attempt to get the details of the technology and evaluate it. It's simple: They just will not get involved in evaluating new technology.

> - Perhaps they evaluated and weren't impressed. Or is that impossible?

It is impossible. They can't have even as much as a weak little hollow hint of a tiny clue about anything about the crucial internals of the technology. They received only a business view of the power and value of the technology. For how it works, which is crucial for evaluating it, they don't know. To know they would have to do some due diligence. There is little hope that they could competently direct the due diligence.

> - Fantastic. Again we're not talking about the broader VC industry.

Right. We're talking about A16Z. My point was in response to your figure of 80%: Likely a VC firm with ROI just better than 80% of the VC industry is still losing money for its LPs. In this case, even if A16Z has better ROI than 80% of VC firms, they might still be losing money. However, since they just raised $1.5 billion, I suspect that it appears that they are making money; since a lot of the old investments likely have yet to exit, it might be tough to know their ROI so far, but no doubt they had to show something good about ROI to raise $1.5 billion.

> Incorrect. What about Oculus for example?

I don't know that case well, but my superficial understanding is that the product was in production and selling and all a venture firm had to do was to evaluate the sales figures and the product itself without much concern for any crucial internals of the technology. Like I said, the US DoD, CIA, etc. funded the SR-71 when nearly it was was engineering on paper, and VCs would want to wait until the plane was flying successfully and then maybe pay for some of the jet fuel. US IT VCs just will not evaluate technical work just on paper; they won't do it. Maybe this situation is enforced by the LPs, but that is the situation. The story used to be that VCs could fund a project described on the back of a napkin, but now they just will not fund original technical work just on paper or even when the corresponding software is production quality and running. If some such project gets funded, then the reason was not just the technology and software but the reputation of the founder or some such. NSF, NIH, DARPA, Ph.D. committees, and peer-reviewed journals of original research will evaluate new work just on paper, but US IT VCs just will not. And, e-mail with any such connection with such research goes into the bit bucket, from their "filter" if they look at the e-mail at all.

We are in agreement: They just do not want to look at e-mail.

So be it.

The project in question, if it starts to work at all, will quickly generate revenue of $10,000, $40,000, ..., $800,000 a month starting with just a $1500 server and, for $1 million a month, using just a few such servers in a spare bedroom with some A/C in a window, a consumer Internet connection (that permits commercial usage), and a 200 A circuit breaker.

So, why jerk chains of VCs? For the project in question, it has long been the case that there has been no very good reason, although maybe just as 'reserve fuel' in case of some disaster. The main reason for my posts here are just to let the HN community know that A16Z and essentially all of US IT VC just will not take seriously descriptions of technical work in e-mail without an introduction, knowing the person, etc. For anyone with a background in doing projects inside a business, for US national security, or for academic research, this situation is just bizarre and has cost the founders of the project a lot of time although only some time ago. But the project moved forward on its own funding, and revenue with good free cash flow, plenty enough to grow capacity if usage does grow, seems quite near. So, for this project, to heck with VCs. But the time wasted in the past on VCs still hurts. And the HN audience should know some of the truth.

It sounds like you have everything figured out, the solution is beyond comprehension for mere mortals, and that you'll have 100s of millions of dollars shortly. Perhaps with your new found wealth you can open an IT VC, invest in email filtering, and show everyone here how it should be done. I wish you best of luck in your future endeavors and hope you find success.

> It sounds like you have everything figured out, the solution is beyond comprehension for mere mortals, and that you'll have 100s of millions of dollars shortly.

That's definitely the plan except for the part about "mere mortals".

Mortals suffice, but not "mere mortals": Instead need some help, or, say, need to "stand on the shoulders of giants". The giants in question are not in computer science -- "a field with much that is new and good however the new is not good and the good is not new", too close to being fully true.

Without standing on the shoulders of the right giants, your "mere mortals" is fully correct -- can't do it. That is, one guy has, in practice, no chance of reinventing all that stuff needed from the giants. Indeed, it's tough enough just to get through the exercises in one of the better books needed. More than one guy? For the original work needed, that is nearly always done by just one guy; two are less good.

I've already "shown how it's done" in technology many times for US national security, in US business, and in research for US national security and business.

The US DoD, DARPA, NSF, and NIH have long shown the world "how it's done", in total for 70+ years.

The simplest arithmetic shows that US information technology (IT) venture capital (VC) is not a very good business compared with consumer Internet: That is, a US IT VC firm might get up to assets under management of $5 billion or so, but the founders of Google, Facebook, and more have more than that in their personal net worth.

One problem with VC is, even if they decide to take their e-mail seriously, really the best they can do is just from what arrives in their e-mail, and far from VC there are some serious obstacles here: First, a standard assumption is that, since computers are to be used in the work (they likely do remain the great largely unexploited opportunity), the assumption is that computer science is the best academic background. Well, that assumption is false; if want to be quite serious about the work, then that assumption is badly false. Second, for really good results, it will be necessary for some good people with good academic backgrounds in crucial fields and topics outside of computer science to pursue entrepreneurship, and so far the appropriate US academic culture discourages this.

For this assumption, the US DoD knows that it is largely false and, thus, concentrates on pure and applied mathematics, mathematical and applied physics, and some relatively mathematical topics in electronic and other parts of engineering. The DoD makes very heavy use of computing but not so much of computer science.

So, for good results in VC, it will be necessary to catch up with the DoD and get good people with the 'right stuff' from academic fields other than computer science, and that catch up effort will be difficult.

Really, for good projects, the situation is much better on the entrepreneur's side of the table because there one can cook up terrific stuff instead of just waiting for it to arrive via e-mail.

My point that VCs and A16Z ignore their e-mail really was well supported by your statement that e-mail is about the worst way to contact a VC partner. Okay, the VC partners don't want to take e-mail seriously. Bizarre, but true, and so be it.

For the project in question, once it gets enough 'traction' to be of interest to a VC, the revenue will be way past when the project would accept equity funding. E.g., one VC responded that they wanted to see 100,000 unique visitors a month before investing. Okay, but for the project in question that would be about $40,000 a month in revenue from a server with $1500 in parts and an Internet connection costing about $100 a month. With the $40,000 a month, VC equity funding, a C-corp with VCs on the Board, etc. would be about as welcome as a skunk at a garden party.

One big reason: For the project in question with its technology the VCs can't evaluate, there will be more such work to do, less important than the work done already but, still, very much worth doing. But, of course, the Board would have to approve the organization and budgets for such work. Tilt! A Board of VCs would not be able to do such work because they would not be able to understand the project they were being asked to approve. So, such a Board would a hole in the bottom of the boat of the company.

The current A16Z Web site mentions that the number of VC firms has been shrinking. Since they refused to read their e-mail, easy to believe.

Darwin has a lot of work to do and, thus, is a very busy guy; still Sand Hill Road and Winter Street are due for a visit from Charles just any day now. Likely what will be left are firms willing to read e-mail and evaluate projects with new, advanced, powerful, valuable technology that is the crucial core of a valuable business. In the meanwhile, entrepreneurs should concentrate on some good research for some good projects that can be brought to market and significant revenue with, say, a server from $1500 in parts and an ordinary Internet connection. The research is the crucial part.

Sure, VCs won't invest in projects based on research, not even if the research is already in production quality code. But think of the flip side: For such a project, VCs won't invest in any competition, either!