Silicon valley venture capital

At age 9, Michelle Crosby was put on a witness stand and asked which of her divorcing parents she wanted to live with. Years later, similarly traumatized by her own divorce, Crosby was convinced she could devise a kinder, gentler process. The former family law attorney founded Wevorce, which seeks to streamline amicable divorces using software.The company, according to Crosby, is complementary to the collaborative law movement. But Wevorce is “high tech and high touch,” she says. The company’s methodology is built on the typical legal, emotional and financial elements of divorce and the cloud-based, custom case-management software enables couples to populate legal documents themselves. Teams of mediators, counselors and financial advisers trained in “neuroscience, archetypal patterns and reframing families from one household to two” facilitate settlement agreements that are then reviewed by the couple’s own attorneys, Crosby says.Priced up front, the … [Read more...] about Silicon Valley venture capital group wants to provide kinder, cheaper way to divorce

In a ruling that may be revisited, a California judge has nixed a Silicon Valley venture capital firm’s effort to arbitrate a high-profile sex-discrimination suit brought by a former BigLaw associate with sterling credentials.Although Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers had said, in a motion filed last month, that the operating agreement for the entity for which junior partner Ellen Pao works has an express arbitration clause, San Francisco Superior Court Judge Harold Kahn disagreed. He found there was no arbitration agreement, but said his ruling was tentative, the Recorder reports.However, the judge is allowing the firm to refile its motion to compel arbitration and include new arguments after another hearing Tuesday, according to the Business Insider and a statement provided to the ABA Journal by a spokeswoman for the venture capital firm.It says Kleiner Perkins plans to file by July 13 a motion making third-party beneficiary and equitable estoppel arguments for arbitration. … [Read more...] about Kleiner Perkins to Make New Arbitration Bid in High-Profile Silicon Valley Sex-Discrimination Case

Saying that she couldn’t afford to do so, Ellen Pao has announced that she will not appeal a defense verdict in the high-profile employment discrimination case she brought against a storied Silicon Valley venture capital firm.Pao, a former BigLaw associate with star credentials, also said in a Re/Code column that the case showed her how legal and procedural standards make such a case difficult to win.“From the first day of trial, I saw how hard it was going to be to win when every potential juror who expressed a belief that sexism exists in tech—a belief that is widely recognized and documented—was not allowed to serve on the jury,” she wrote.Additionally, “the disparity in legal, PR and financial resources is also tremendous—and the primary reason for my decision to now focus my efforts outside court,” she said in the Thursday column. ” I was lucky to have the resources to bring my case this far. I personally spent significant … [Read more...] about Ellen Pao won’t appeal venture capital firm’s win in discrimination case, says she lacks resources

Flooding a massive desert with desalinated ocean water to grow enough algae to consume Earth's climate-changing carbon dioxide is one of four "moonshot" scenarios revealed by a Silicon Valley venture capital firm, NBC News reported. The desert flooding project would cost upwards of $50 trillion, according to Y Combinator, which unveiled the plan last month in hopes of inspiring other innovators to explore remedies for global warming. But experts caution that such plans could create as many problems as they solve, even if they do stand a chance of reducing greenhouse gasses. Y Combinator President Sam Altman predicted that the firm, which helped finance Airbnb and Dropbnox, will fund three companies to pursue the "Plan B" climate solutions in 2019. A federal appeals court heard arguments Monday on whether Donald Trump and his administration can be sued by a group of children over the president's environmental policy. (Published Monday, Dec. 11, 2017) Get More at NBC News … [Read more...] about Major Venture Capital Firm Seeks ‘Plan B’ to Help Stop Global Warming

 The Venture Capital industry has been a critical component of the high impact business scene in the United States for fifty years.  It is hard to imagine a Silicon Valley anything like today’s without recognizing the critical role venture capital and venture capitalists have played in creating and sustaining it – “it” being an innovation engine of unmatched impact anywhere else in the world, and one that, gradually, is infiltrating other parts of the nation and globe.  And yet, many entrepreneurs are deeply suspicious of the industry and its practitioners.  Many entrepreneurs, including even a few who have, or at least seemed to have, benefited from working with venture capitalists, talk about the industry with terms like “vulture capital” and “vulture capitalist.”  What goes on here? As a serial venture-backed entrepreneur, venture capitalist and counsel to dozens of entrepreneurs and venture capitalists … [Read more...] about Venture Capital: Preliminary Questions for Entrepreneurs