We beat up on Eric Schmidt on the podcast quite a bit mostly because he makes it easy by speaking what is on his mind without much in the way of a filter. But he really is a brilliant man in his own right and he tends to do things in a way that hasn’t been tried before. That’s the case with his new VC firm.
Google’s former CEO and current executive chairman has reached in to his back pocket for a little petty cash and funded a new venture capital firm called Innovation Endeavors about a year ago. Based in Palo Alto this VC firm is being headed up by 33 year old technologist Dror Berman. The interesting bit is that Berman has no formal investment or finance background and this is his first startup, something unusual for someone running a VC firm.
IE is taking a new path toward finding ideas to invest in, calling itself Runway, it is a pre-team and pre-idea. Instead of investing in companies individual entrepreneurs are brought together to create new teams and then brainstorm new ideas together looking for a problem that needs solving. The intention is to invest in people and not companies.
It’s getting late, but if you hurry you an apply to be a part of this new program. You need to be willing to commit to a full time, six month, program and be ready to go from zero to hero in just six months. Are you going to step up for a piece of Eric’s cash? I know I would love to, but I have a feeling that my wife would be a bit ‘unhappy’ if I were to suddenly take six months off to spend in Palo Alto.
