Top comment on the article is probably partially correct, if snarky:
"Well, at the very least, it’s the most elaborate iteration of “Daddy needs a tax deduction” that I’ve ever seen."
That the pocket-square emblazoned founder of a sexy non-profit is the son of a well-heeled VC is old hat.
"Changing the world" is one of the well established paths for masters-of-the-universe in training.
But the attachment to also running his own "Venture Fund" as a 20 year old made me realize what a crazy good time to be young, in any Ivy / forward thinking school and have a pocket full of cash - just saw the official UC Berkeley House Fund (1) news last week in this vein.
As an investment thesis getting your money first in line before the next Zuck or Gates drops out of Harvard / Yale / Berk ain't a bad idea
The first time I met a few semi-prominent VC partners to casually chat about an startup I was thinking about, I was surprised at how well received my napkin idea was. At the end of the walk around building they had said they would love to help find an angel round and I was taken aback at how eager and positive they were. I even mentioned that it seemed unreal that they'd be willing to jump in that quickly. One of the partners laughed and said "Are you kidding, you gave me a solid pitch with technology we believe you can build. I spend half my day sorting through pitches that involve some obscure form of perpetual motion or pyramid schemes. Our chat was better than most formal presentations we get."
I've since made it a bit of habit to gauge the quality of pitches a VC I talk to has gotten recently. Many of the stories I've heard make this pitch seem almost competent.
The absolute worst thing about going to events where a bunch of people pitch is just how awful most startup ideas are. Not awful in the too-crazy-to-work sense (like Uber or AirBnB), but awful in the entering-a-crowded-market-with-a-very-timid-idea sense. Things with no reasonable path to monetization.
The opposite of pg's "frighteningly ambitious" is "unfrighteningly unambitious". There are too many startups out there that won't scare anyone - especially their founders.
It seems this Helena was made by some Markov chain or CNN that read too many startup and corporate prospects
Oh of course it already has a board and investors
And it's going to use synergy to empower the next level of corporate creativity or something like that
Really
One of the commenters gives a plausible idea: 'Well, at the very least, it’s the most elaborate iteration of “Daddy needs a tax deduction” that I’ve ever seen.'
I got a good laugh out of his bio line 'After leaving traditional high school to compete on the international ski racing circuit...,' trying to throw off a genius-playboy-athlete vibe.
His FIS profile has him as a 100 point skier (1). I was a 100 point skier, and I sucked ass, miles away from any reasonable standard of international competition.
This is harsher than it needs to be. A lot of us as sophomores started clubs, companies, organizations. I sincerely think this guy is trying to do something similar. He just seems to have better contacts. We also made (or projected) embarrassing mistakes at our first ventures. He maybe doing some of those too.
But from the look of it, it is simply an intellectually curious kid trying to keep himself busy. He also has a venture firm which backs that he has that kind of flare.
Not every 20-year-old student venture should be a Snapchat. Relax and let the guy do what makes him happy.
It's actually right on point. Don't act like this is just some kid in his dorm coding up a new idea. This is just a giant money laundering scheme for the rich father.
Rich people funnel money for their cause of the month to a shell company, which filters it around, and at the end they get a big tax write off. I would have thought the stock photos, buzzword bingo, and the clueless responses from the publicists would have tipped it off.
"How does a 20-year-old college kid come to be the CEO of an international startup and the owner of a VC firm? If his last name is familiar, it’s probably not just because he is the Founder, CEO and Chairman of the Helena Group, but because his dad is Bill Elkus, a successful venture capitalist (“one of the top 50 to 100 Venture Capitalists in the United States by Forbes Magazine in its annual Midas List on three separate occasions,” according to his website bio)."
Is it really that hard to figure out this is just something to keep the kid busy (and maybe brush up against some Hollywood starlets)?
C'mon, at least mount a hostile takeover of zombo.com or something.
I think it's clear that the company doesn't know what they are doing. It's hard to be that consistently unclear. It sounds like they are trying to pull a bunch of smart people in a room and come up with a problem they can solve. Most people figure out what they want to do first and then start a company. It appears that they decided to start a company and then figure out what they want to do.
I heard a couple of founders pitching the other day, and answered a question from a VC with (and I paraphrase) "We'll implement this, and then figure out what problem it solves".
To an extent, you can work by simply building a basic technology and, as William Gibson said, "The street finds its own uses for things". But doing that requires a fundamental new tech.
Likewise, you can work by simply getting a bunch of smart, powerful people in a room and seeing what happens. But at best, the street finds its own uses for things. At worst, it's a venue for networking and a free catered dinner. If you don't bring them a problem to solve in advance, they'll just do what they want, which probably won't be useful to anyone but themselves.
Looking at this, though, the one thing that does stand out from all the mush is the idea of getting different generations to work together. Which is (I say this as an old fart) stupid. A bunch of entitled college kids complaining that the old people who run the world don't listen to them or let them "innovate" solutions? Feh. All those old people were young once, too. They remember being young. They remember being absolutely certain that they understood how the world worked, and how to solve all the problems, and they remember knowing that the main impediment to saving the planet was all the old people who were running everything not listening to them. The reason the Boomer masters of the universe don't take Millenials seriously is because they've been around long enough to know just how naive kids are, and that there's no wisdom in being naive.
But I rant. Anyway, this is BS. Nobody is going to solve any problems by getting the stupid old people to listen to the brilliant young people.
To me, this looks like they are attempting to gather people, who have a "voice" in the world, in order to speak out about issues that affect the masses. It's a company whose sole purpose is to accelerate and "change" the human race. Pretty cool if you ask me.
We're a self-destructing group of selfish individuals who, more often than not, cannot see further than the tip of our nose. I'm glad there's a group who is trying to shine light on that.
maybe the kid just created it for his web design/ecommerce 201 class?
way to freak out Gawker.. what do they want you to do? If they are simply trolling you, then it's your job to filter the shit out, instead of freaking out and making a headline article about it...
"Well, at the very least, it’s the most elaborate iteration of “Daddy needs a tax deduction” that I’ve ever seen."
That the pocket-square emblazoned founder of a sexy non-profit is the son of a well-heeled VC is old hat.
"Changing the world" is one of the well established paths for masters-of-the-universe in training.
But the attachment to also running his own "Venture Fund" as a 20 year old made me realize what a crazy good time to be young, in any Ivy / forward thinking school and have a pocket full of cash - just saw the official UC Berkeley House Fund (1) news last week in this vein.
As an investment thesis getting your money first in line before the next Zuck or Gates drops out of Harvard / Yale / Berk ain't a bad idea
(1) http://news.berkeley.edu/2016/04/22/the-house-fund/