Pic Of The Day: Mike Moritz descends to earth

[geek]

A rare public appearance by Mike Moritz, the loner of Sand Hill Road, yesterday, at Heidi Roizen's awards for Silicon Valley visionaries. The legendary Sequoia partner really shouldn't have accepted, for three reasons.First of all, Moritz has godlike status precisely because he avoids the industry events at which his venture capital peers buzz around. (That he backed Yahoo and Google doesn't hurt.) As Eric Schmidt said, he's a "loner" -- and that's an essential part of his personal brand. So why has the unclubbable VC, in the last few months, thrown a party at his house, publicly slapped a founder he once backed, and allowed himself to be photographed by Time Magazine. Anyone would think he was engaged in self-promotion, which is a disturbing activity for one so elevated, and so detached.
Second, nobody who is truly visionary should ever accept an award declaring as much. Just ask yourself: would Steve Jobs accept such an honor?
And, third, Moritz is still, at heart, a Brit, and a journalist, unable to utter the platitudes that are expected at earnest tech-industry events. In accepting his commendation, yesterday, the legendary venture capitalist made some joke about the firm's dental plan, and vision plan, which fell rather flat. Silicon Valley likes its visionaries gushing, rather than drily witty.
Kara Swisher from All Things Digital has video from the event, here
Tom Foremski says Mike Moritz's speech fell flat
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