[SCOOP] Odeo Buys Back Soul

679

rabruzzo

10/25/06 08:01PM

Filed to: Odeo

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Odeo, a podcasting site started by Evan Williams, who already made a tidy little fortune selling Blogger to Google, is buying back the share owned by investment firm Charles River Ventures. A source told Valleywag, Evan made the decision to dump investors (the venture capitalist aren't happy), which leads us to believe Williams still greatly cares about the company and has plans for Odeo's future. The source also says Evans never needed the money but was scared not to take it, and Charles River is now shopping around for a new podcast companies to invest in.

[Odeo]
[Charles River Ventures]

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jameshong rabruzzo 10/26/06 03:02AM

Bill and George are great, great guys, and it's foolish to think that they would be unhappy to get their money back. Most Venture investments fail, some break even, some profit a bit, and some profit a LOT. That's how portfolio theory works.

Getting your money back is a good outcome, much better than losing your money, and in retrospect, it's like you got to take the risk for free. Thats the way i see it, although i'm admittedly not a VC, but I did angel in Odeo, and I think it's amazing what Evan is doing.

As far as I know, there are not any bad feelings at all between Evan and CRV. Whoever spread this rumor is trying to make things sound antagonistic, but i think s/he's wrong.

David rabruzzo 10/27/06 09:08AM

Nick, its neither. The VC's wouldn't have gotten all their money back, and it won't be Odeo that makes any money, but whatever it becomes in the context of Obvious corp.

This is the same situation as Tribe - if they'd stayed with the backers they would have had some 2001 style bullshit focus on 'enterprise sales' in a desperate struggle to make a company something that its not, within months.

I see that Trumba is the first web2.0 co to beat this imaginary path. Its all so deja vu.

ScalaWag rabruzzo 10/25/06 08:43PM

I really feel for these VCs.

Why would anyone who is any good put up with their crap?

Maybe they will have to do some real work for a change.

Nick Douglas rabruzzo 10/26/06 01:47PM

James, which is it: should the VCs be happy to get their money back from Odeo, or is Odeo going to make a lot of money? You can't have it both ways.