Spencer Ante has posted an article from IBD on legendary VC Arthur Rock (with an investment resume that includes Fairchild Semiconductor, Intel, and Apple, legendary is an appropriate adjective). Rock is a protegé of pioneering venture capitalist Georges “I’ll take an Grade A individual with a B idea over a Grade B individual with an A idea” Doriot. With the venture industry going through a few hiccups at the moment, it’s a great opportunity to take some time and soak up a bit of knowledge from those who’ve “been there, done that” on a grande scale.
Along those same lines, if you haven’t already done so, I highly recommend reading Ante’s “Creative Capital: Georges Doriot and the Birth of Venture Capital“. As it said in Ecclesiastes, “there’s nothing new under the sun”, and so it may behoove those of us on the investor side to remember a bit more of the history of the industry and occasionally look for advice and guidance to those who came before us (try finding active VCs whose careers in venture pre-date the Netscape IPO. They exist, but they’re rare).
Here’s the article:
Additionally, here’s a video of Rock from a talk he gave at the Computer History Museum a couple of years ago:
HEC Paris Private Equity and Venture Capital Club Blog 
To think that venture capital was invented by a Frenchman…..how ironic considering the sorry state of the French VC industry.