[richcollins]

Anyone else sick of drawn out human interest stories at the beginning of news articles?

WRT to the article:

Most E.I.R.’s receive a monthly stipend of up to $15,000 to sit and think for about six months.

That is a horrible way to create successful products. Good entrepreneurs take action as much as they deeply ponder ideas.

[akadien]

Maybe that gives them time to develop an idea into homerun for the VC firm, whereas bootstrap entrepreneurs have to hit singles and doubles at first to survive.

[richcollins]

Any anecdotal evidence of this? Most home runs that I know about are from scrappy, resourceful founders that discovered something simple through experimentation that scaled into a huge company.

[pedalpete]

Doesn't the article give the anecdotal evidence? Data domain and Zimbra are some big number acquisitions. Also, consider the number of companies that VC's are pitched via non-EIR's vs pitched by EIR's, and I would say the numbers are favorable if not equal that an EIR is as good as a scrappy and resourceful founder.

[akadien]

No. I'm speculating and conjecturing on the intent of a six month EIR tenure.

[PostOnce]

I like to think that hunger and need help drive people to success. If you're making 15K a month, you probably aren't waking up nights struggling with the desperate urge to figure out something profitable.

I know a lawyer who was probably the most driven person I'd ever known, until she graduated law school. Hasn't taken an upwardly-mobile action since she got the job 16 years ago.

[mos1]

My reaction to success is to aim higher, and fire again.

I was going to say that my efforts are uncorrelated to my wallet, but I don't think that's true; I think they're inversely correlated.

I hate to cite a second anecdote as rebuttal, but I don't have any controlled studies available :-)