Reality, Comedy & Venture Capital

The story of the court jester is an important one. Largely employed by rulers to entertain during medieval times, they served not simply to amuse but to criticize their master and their guests. The jesters position was one within a the power structures of society. Rulers knew that their servants had neither the position or the courage to drop a truth bomb or two, and so this role was outsourced to the local fool.

The problem today, is that most leaders, CEO’s and entrepreneurs don’t have a personal jester to keep them in tow. Maybe we should. It’s also fair to say that the technology and Venture Capital realm could do with an injection of reality now and again. I recently happened upon a video of famed inventor Nikola Tesla as if he was transported from the past directly into Silicon Valley. He was pitching his concepts to a group of VC’s whose responses were both hilarious and predictable. Another classic example which proves we often have more to learn from the Court Jester than the local hero who has already made bank. It seems as though we too have our own Jester, in the form of video spoofs.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zngK13FMgXM]

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3 thoughts on “Reality, Comedy & Venture Capital

  1. This is something I’ve been thinking about the political leadership of the past few years in Australia and the USA. They’ve been sorely lacking jesters to keep them grounded and stop them from basking in the popular support that swept them into power.

    I think after an era of conservative governments who attracted a particularly strong level of hatred, modern satirists have thought it their job to just carry on bashing conservatives, when in fact their primary role should be to make fun of whomever wields the greatest power.

    And so the liberal governments that took power in the late 2000s have been subjected to inadequate attention from the jesters.

    But it’s been to their detriment, with these governments now being seen by many of their once-fanatical supporters to have turned out to be great disappointments.

  2. Good stuff – boys. I really do think the technorati have a particularly bad habit of directing attention to the opposite instead of the the bad side of stuff, regardless of whom is peddling it.
    Steve.

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