Every entrepreneur who took venture capitalist money in the last 40 years can tell you the same story. The VCs exerted far more control than expected; budgets were slashed; friends were fired from the payroll; and “they never really got our vision.” The infamous words of Gordon Gecko in the movie Wall Street, who uttered, “greed is good” as he slashed and burned companies, have become a dire warning for anyone thinking about raising money.

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Given those stories, you’d think VCs are the last thing the world needs to make innovation happen.
 
But hold on, the tide is changing. It used to be that being a VC meant setting a new course and tightening up a sloppy ship, but that was yesterday. Today the smartest VCs recognize that the rules have changed — today they can provide the fuel for fully functioning ships — AND they face an unprecedented opportunity to help the world innovate because for the first time in history they represent a safe harbor.
 
This isn’t an ad for VCs (we’ve never raised money), but if these smart folks think the opportunities lay in following three places, maybe you should too.

> Disrupters. Companies that are reinventing the rules. Companies that can produce a result through a product or a service that is dramatically more effective or cheaper than their peers. 

> Failing Forward. To be an innovator you must be prepared to fail often. VCs are beginning to recognize that this pattern of fail, learn, fail, learn, succeed — Launch! is a necessary cultural attribute for successful, fast-growth companies.

Here’s a link to the article I wrote on this topic that includes some details on how to set yourself up for some VC money that will fuel your innovation engine: BusinessWeek

Greed might not be good, but as it turns out, VCs aren’t always that bad. 

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