Weekend Entrepreneur Links: Angel Investing, SEC, Commencement

by Nathaniel Whittemore · 2010-06-20 21:50:00 UTC
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As much as it pains me to do this, I'm going to avoid posting about the World Cup this week. Instead, find below some of the best links for entrepreneurs from the last few weeks, including commencement speeches, super smart tips about what's happening with angel investment in the web world, and more.

Video: The State of Angel Investing & What Startups Can Learn From It, According to Keith Rabois: Keith Rabois is a well-known angel based in San Francisco who has put money into some companies you may have heard of like YouTube and Yelp. Regular readers of this blog know that I think there is a growing conversation between the web tech world and the social startup space, and although this is specifically focused on technology angels, I think it's an incredibly thoughtful and smart overview of the scene, and well worth your 20 minutes.

Petition for a Natural Entrepreneur's Day: The relationship between the Obama administration and big business isn't real great right now. Ultimately though, that doesn't worry me a bunch. What I do think is important is that this administration follows through on its apparent interest in seeding a new generation of entrepreneurs. This petition being pushed by a number of prominent entrepreneurs and venture capitalists is trying to get recognition for a national day honoring entrepreneurship.

An Online Lender Takes On The SEC: When Kiva.org was first trying to figure out whether it was going to be a for-profit or a nonprofit, one of the reasons it chose to be a nonprofit was a nervousness that the Securities Exchange Commission would consider any returns that they offered on their loans to be financial "securities," and therefore subject to extensive regulations. Prosper is an online lending marketplace that has been subject to this challenge and now is fighting back.

Graduation Speech by Jeff Skoll: Jeff Skoll is one of the most successful ever graduates from the Stanford Graduate School of Business, both in terms of his influence on the internet (first employee of eBay), his personal financial success, and most importantly now (at least to our space) as the founder of the Skoll Foundation and the Skoll Global Threats Fund. He gave this commencement speech last week.

Photo credit: Yaniv Golan

Nathaniel Whittemore is the founder of Assetmap. Previously he was the founding director of the Northwestern University Center for Global Engagement.
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