Author Profile
Gil Penchina
American • Businessman
26
Total Quotes
Collected Meditations
Showing 26 quotesA mistake I've made is investing in my idea rather than the entrepreneur's. Sometimes I'm excited about an idea that is similar to the entrepreneur's idea - but not the same. A smart entrepreneur will convince me it is the same, until I write a check!— Gil Penchina
There are lot of ways people get non-economic payback - learning, networking, and relationships. These drive most angels more than the money.— Gil Penchina
I was one of the early folks at eBay, and by 1999, it was completely overrun by consultants from McKinsey, Bain, and BCG. It went from being a cool, fun startup to an MBA factory.— Gil Penchina
All I do is talk to people, email people, take meetings with people, and do interviews. Then I work at maintaining relationships with my investors because the trust people place in me is my business model.— Gil Penchina
Startups are all about breaking the rules and changing the 'natural order' of things. So let's do that for Series A terms.— Gil Penchina
While seed deals have gotten easy, Series A negotiations still often feel like the death of 1,000 cuts.— Gil Penchina
When I first started as an angel investor, I was excited to start investing in startups - but I didn't know much. I couldn't tell the good ones from the bad; I didn't understand all these venture capital terms, so I would invest somewhat blindly.— Gil Penchina
Ethereum is enabling a new form of financing in ICOs that is like a massive gravitational pull - dragging every entrepreneur with a sense for opportunity into its blackhole-level gravity.— Gil Penchina
Along the way, I learned the key to launching a company. It's all about storytelling.— Gil Penchina
I've been lucky enough to be involved in a number of great startups, including eBay and Wikia as an entrepreneur and LinkedIn and Paypal as an investor.— Gil Penchina
In the U.S., Wikia has content sponsorships with top brands, including Blizzard Activision, Sony, Microsoft, Electronic Arts, ABC Television and others.— Gil Penchina
Whether someone wants to learn the words to a new Lady Gaga song they heard on the radio or to verify the lyrics to 'Blinded by the Light', the LyricWiki community delivers.— Gil Penchina
When I participate in a Series A deal with VCs, entrepreneur-friendly terms go out the window. VCs remain attached to age-old traditional industry terms. 'Ratchet,' 'carry,' 'vetoes' - you name it.— Gil Penchina
Buying a banner, you have no control whether ten different people see your ad once, or one person sees it ten times.— Gil Penchina
Any ICO going forward that doesn't use a 'Ticketmaster-style' queueing engine is clearly trying to ruin the ecosystem.— Gil Penchina
You're under tremendous pressure, and everyone needs you to be perfect all the time, and that often creates a perverse incentive to not tell the truth. Please remember - when you get caught not telling the truth, it's over.— Gil Penchina