Fidel Castro advises friend North Korea against war

By Jeff Franks

HAVANA (Reuters) - Former Cuban leader Fidel Castro warned ally North Korea against war on Friday and described the current tensions on the Korean Peninsula as one of the "gravest risks" for nuclear holocaust since the Cuban Missile Crisis in 1962.

Saying he spoke as a friend, Castro wrote in Cuban state media that North Korea, led by 30-year-old Kim Jong-un, had shown the world its technical prowess and now it was time to remember its duties to others.

North Korea, which along with Cuba is one of the world's last communist countries, has been ratcheting up pressure by declaring war on neighbor South Korea and threatening to stage a nuclear strike on the United States.

Few observers believe it will actually attack anyone, but Castro has become an anti-nuclear advocate in recent years.

"The Democratic People's Republic of Korea was always friendly with Cuba, as Cuba always has been and will continue to be with her," Castro wrote, using an almost paternalistic tone.

"Now that it has demonstrated its technical and scientific advances, we remind it of its duties to other countries who have been great friends and that it would not be just to forget that such a war would affect in a special way more than 70 percent of the world's population," said the 86-year-old, who turned Cuba communist after taking power in a 1959 revolution.

Castro called the present situation on the Korean Peninsula "incredible and absurd," but said "it has to do with one of the gravest risks of nuclear war since the Crisis of October (Cuban Missile Crisis), 50 years ago."

He led Cuba through the October 1962 showdown when the United States and Soviet Union nearly went to war over the placement of Soviet nuclear missiles on Cuba, 90 miles south of Florida.

At one point, Castro wrote a letter to Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev urging a nuclear attack on the United States, which he assumed was about to invade the Caribbean island.

Cooler heads prevailed as Khruschev and President John F. Kennedy reached an agreement in which the Soviet missiles were removed and the United States promised never to invade Cuba.

Castro ruled Cuba for 49 years before age and ill health forced him to step down in 2008.

He was succeeded as president by younger brother Raul Castro, 81, but remains a power behind the scenes and writes occasional columns for Cuban press.

The elder Castro also said the United States had the responsibility to prevent war, which he said if unleashed would make President Barack Obama look like "the most sinister person in the history of the United States."

(Editing by Doina Chiacu)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/fidel-castro-advises-friend-north-korea-against-war-160232730.html

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Hillary Clinton to headline NY women's conference

NEW YORK (AP) ? There's been plenty of star power already at the Women in the World summit in New York: Angelina Jolie and Meryl Streep both were part of the opening night program.

But a different sort of star is sure to get a rapturous reception Friday at the annual two-day conference, which focuses on global women's issues: Hillary Rodham Clinton.

It's her second high-profile speech this week, following one at the Vital Voices Global Leadership Awards in Washington, and it coincides with the announcement Thursday of her new memoir about her years as secretary of state. She's addressed this forum before, but now there's the added excitement of all the speculation: What's next for her?

The main focus of the women's conference, though, is the plight of women across the globe, and Jolie had the most emotional moment Thursday, introducing ? via video from Britain ? Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who was shot in the head by the Taliban for advocating for girls' education.

"Today I'm going to announce the happiest moment of my life," the 15-year-old said in the brief video, wearing a bright red headscarf and at one point shyly covering her face with her hands. She said that thanks to the new "Malala's Fund," which she will administer, a new school in her homeland would be built for 40 girls. "Let us turn the education of 40 girls into 40 million girls," she said.

Malala has garnered huge global attention since she was shot in the head in October by Taliban attackers angered by her activism. She was brought to Britain for treatment and surgery, including skull reconstruction. She's now started attending school there. She recently signed a deal to write her memoir, and she was also shortlisted for Time Magazine's "Person of the Year" in 2012.

Jolie gave a poignant rendition of her story. "Here's what they accomplished," she said of Malala's attackers. "They shot her point blank range in the head ? and made her stronger. The brutal attempt to silence her voice made it stronger."

After Jolie's introduction, Tina Brown, the Newsweek/Daily Beast editor who created the Women in the World summit, now in its fourth year, told the audience that Jolie had just committed $200,000 personally to the fund, which was established by Vital Voices, with a donation from the Women in the World Foundation.

Jolie was not the only Hollywood star on the stage of Lincoln Center's David H. Koch Theater Thursday. Streep was there to honor another activist, Inez McCormack of Northern Ireland, who died in January of cancer. At the first summit in 2010, Streep had played McCormack in a short play, called "Seven," with McCormack herself watching from the audience. Streep spoke some lines from the play on Thursday evening ? in a flawless Irish accent.

The evening began with a dance performance by Michaela DePrince, who grew up as an orphan in war-torn Sierra Leone, where her father was killed and her mother starved to death, as she explained in an accompanying film. She was adopted by an American family and now dances with the Dance Theater of Harlem.

Barbara Walters moderated a panel on Syria, Charlie Rose interviewed South African political activist Mamphela Ramphele, and Christiane Amanpour led a panel on "The Next Generation of Malalas," featuring two other young women fighting for girls' rights in Pakistan.

Jolie, who is a special envoy for the U.N. refugee agency, told an anecdote about Malala that had the audience smiling. She said the girl's father had shown his daughter, in the hospital, a poll that said she was the sixth most influential person in the world, and that President Barack Obama was seventh. But the girl, according to the story, said she wasn't so happy ? she didn't think human beings should be categorized like that.

"So there's a lot we can learn from this little girl," Jolie said with a grin.

_

Online: http://womenintheworld.org/pages/women-in-the-world-summit-2013

Associated Press

Source: http://hosted2.ap.org/APDEFAULT/4e67281c3f754d0696fbfdee0f3f1469/Article_2013-04-05-Women's%20Conference/id-d8c3d1324b62499d803a9301ea76c9d3

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'Game of Thrones' star: 'I have less than $5'

By Bruna Nessif, E! Online

Jason Merritt / AFP - Getty Images

Lena Headey plays Queen Cersei on "Game of Thrones."

Lena Headey is battling on a budget.

The "Game of Thrones" star, who filed for divorce from her hairdresser husband Peter Loughran in July, claims in her latest court filing pertaining to the split that her bank account is down to single digits.?

"At the present time, I have less than $5 in my bank account and have been using credit cards to pay for living expenses for myself and our son Wylie," states Headey, who plays Cersei Lannister on the HBO hit, in the 79-page filing obtained by E! News.?

NEWS: Judge denies Kim Kardashian's request to move up divorce trial date?

According to the documents, Headey asked her estranged hubby for her share of their 2011 tax refund, stating in a declaration that, after she married Loughran, she became pregnant with their first and only child, who's now 2, and was deemed not insurable due the pregnancy and was unable to work.?

Because of that, the British actress says, they "burned through their savings" and "incurred a substantial amount of consumer debt to pay for our living expense during marriage." She is currently asking for a $6,000 advance from her half of the 2011 tax refund and a hearing has been scheduled for April 26.

PHOTOS: Celebs have their day in court?

--Reporting by Claudia Rosenbaum?

Related content:

More in Entertainment:

?

Source: http://todayentertainment.today.com/_news/2013/04/04/17606832-game-of-thrones-star-i-have-less-than-5-in-my-bank?lite

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Analysis: Spills flame Canadian oil debate, but won't curb flows to U.S

By Jeffrey Jones

CALGARY, Alberta (Reuters) - Two high-profile oil spills won't stem the now-record flow of Canadian oil into the United States, despite the frenzy that the spills triggered among friends and foes of the Keystone XL pipeline to the main U.S. refineries.

The fate of Keystone remains undecided, yet Canadian crude will become an increasing part of the U.S. energy mix, despite growing competition from new U.S. production.

U.S. thirst for Canadian crude has shot up nearly 30 percent over the past five years as refiners opt to buy from the north instead of bringing in more expensive OPEC oil, thanks to a boom in production from the vast Alberta oil sands.

Midwest refiners have invested billions of dollars to tweak plants to take more of the heavy crude from the region, and a small but growing network of rail routes have sprouted up to augment existing pipelines.

So even as environmentalists seized on oil spills last week in Arkansas and Minnesota to warn about the impact of expansion in the tar sands -- the world's third-largest crude deposit -- it appears only a crash in the price of oil or unexpected regulation will derail the growing energy interdependence.

"Short-term, this is not good for producers, it's not good for Canadian oil going south, it's not good for Keystone," John Stephenson, vice-president and portfolio manager at First Asset Investment Management in Toronto said of the two spills.

"But I think the reality is this oil is going to make it south of the border, quite likely by rail or one of the other pipelines across the Canadian-U.S. border, so I see it as a short-term hiccup at worst."

Canada's black gold has allowed the Obama administration to crow about dwindling reliance on oil from less-friendly suppliers in the Middle East and elsewhere. In addition, a glut of the Canadian heavy oil has tempered higher gasoline prices, especially in the U.S. Midwest.

That may trump increasingly bad PR for Canada's oil, much of which is produced by energy- and carbon-intensive methods such as mining or steaming, making it a prime target in the battle over policies to fight global warming.

Yet the growing role of Canadian crude in the U.S. economy cannot be denied. Overall U.S. oil imports fell to 8.5 million barrels a day last year from over 10 million in 2007, but supplies from Canada jumped to 2.4 million barrels a day, from just under 1.9 million, over the period, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration.

That puts Canadian crude at nearly 29 percent of foreign supplies in the United States, despite the remarkable increase in U.S. domestic light oil output from regions such as the North Dakota Bakken that has fueled predictions of North American energy self-sufficiency in 15 years.

In fact, the two types of crude compete little for refinery space, as Canada's heavy crude is being directed at U.S. Gulf Coast plants that are configured to process heavy oil, which now arrives in dwindling volumes from Venezuela and Mexico.

"If that's the case, then Obama's left with not an energy choice -- he's left with a geopolitical choice," said Michal Moore, director of energy and environmental policy at the University of Calgary's School of Public Policy and a former California energy regulator.

"Do you want to piss off Canada by not letting oil into the refineries that can handle it most easily? I don't know how he makes that judgment but I will say that this doesn't help."

Other refiners have also invested to process more feedstock from Canada, with BP sinking $4 billion into its Whiting, Indiana plant to take more of the heavy, sour oil.

In addition to heavy tar sands oil, Canada also exports large volumes of conventional lighter crude.

In January, the U.S. imported over 1.5 million bpd of heavy Canadian crude, defined by the Canadian Association of Petroleum Producers as having an API Gravity of less than 27 degrees, and nearly 1.15 million bpd of lighter, easier to refine oil, according to the EIA.

PIPELINE, RAIL ACCIDENTS

Last week's spills both involved oil from Canada.

On Friday, Exxon Mobil Corp's aging Pegasus pipeline ruptured in Arkansas, forcing a cleanup of thousands of barrels of heavy Canadian oil that leaked into a suburban neighborhood.

The incident followed an oil spill in rural Minnesota on Wednesday after a Canadian Pacific Ltd train derailed. The tanker-car leaked several hundred barrels of Alberta crude and reignited concern about oil moving by train as pipeline capacity lags production growth.

Producers shipped about 45,000 barrels of Canadian oil into the United States by train last year, up from almost nothing just five years earlier, based on Reuters calculations of data from Canada's National Energy Board. Current shipments could be as much as 150,000 barrels a day, estimated Steven Paget, analyst at FirstEnergy Capital Corp.

The spills are the latest in a string of problems for shippers of Canadian crude that have inflamed the debate over the oil sands. The largest spill was the Enbridge Inc line break in Michigan in 2010, which sent more than 20,000 barrels of Canadian oil into the Kalamazoo River system.

U.S. regulators last month ordered Enbridge's U.S. affiliate to do more cleanup at the site, pushing the bill to near $1 billion.

TransCanada Corp , backer of the long-delayed $5.3 billion Keystone XL pipeline to Texas refineries from Alberta, and the line's supporters, say oil spills highlight the need for safer energy infrastructure rather than a shift from pipelines.

"I don't think it will have an impact (on Canadian exports and the approval of pipelines). Look, it's being seized on by those who oppose hydrocarbon development, but if you follow their logic to its conclusion, what they're saying, I guess, is they don't want to see any pipelines built," Canadian Natural Resources Minister Joe Oliver said of the Arkansas spill.

"It's not because of Canadian crude that there was a spill. It was an old pipeline, more than 60 years old."

Oliver has led Ottawa's intense lobbying campaign in favor of the 830,000 barrel a day Keystone XL project, which will take Canadian crude to Gulf refineries. Washington is set to decide on the line this summer and it could be in service in 2015.

PRODUCTION PREDICTION

All predictions are for a steady climb in Canadian production, explaining the industry and government's quest for new markets in the United States and non-traditional areas such as Asia, one of the biggest drivers engines of world oil demand growth.

Canada's National Energy Board has predicted output will average 3.6 million barrels a day this year, up 12.5 percent from 2012, putting it nearly 400,000 barrels a day ahead of No. 2 OPEC producer Iraq's current output.

The industry sees a jump in output to 4.7 million barrels a day by the end of the decade, with new pipelines such as Enbridge's contentious Northern Gateway to Canada's Pacific Coast and TransCanada's Energy East line to the Atlantic provinces planned to move much of the increase.

Last week, Wood Mackenzie, the energy research firm, predicted output of bitumen from the oil sands, will increase by 540,000 barrels a day over the next two years.

Almost three-quarters of that will come from projects that have already been approved and have a break-even oil price below $60 a barrel, WoodMac said. The current price for Canadian heavy oil is about $80 a barrel.

(Additional reporting by Scott Haggett in Calgary and Patrick Rucker in Washington; Editing by Janet Guttsman, Matthew Robinson and Leslie Gevirtz)

Source: http://news.yahoo.com/analysis-spills-flame-canadian-oil-debate-wont-curb-211202673--finance.html

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PFT: Flynn officially heads to Raiders? |? Florio

AP

Two years ago, draft expert Nolan Nawrocki of Pro Football Weekly created a stir with a biting critique of quarterback Cam Newton, the No. 1 overall pick in the draft.

?Very disingenuous ? has a fake smile, comes off as very scripted and has a selfish, me-first makeup,? Nawrocki wrote.? ?Always knows where the cameras are and plays to them.? Has an enormous ego with a sense of entitlement that continually invites trouble and makes him believe he is above the law ? does not command respect from teammates and will always struggle to win a locker room . . . .? Lacks accountability, focus and trustworthiness ? is not punctual, seeks shortcuts and sets a bad example.? Immature and has had issues with authority.? Not dependable.?

Nawrocki has now issued scouting reports for Geno Smith and Matt Barkley, regarded as the top two quarterback prospects in this year?s draft.? And at a time when many believe Smith will be taken before Barkley, Nawrocki calls Barkley a first-round pick and Smith merely a ?top-50 pick.?

Apart from Nawrocki?s critique of Smith?s mechanics, Nawrocki adds this assessment of Smith:? ?Not a student of the game.? Nonchalant field presence ? does not command respect from teammates and cannot inspire.? Mild practice demeanor ? no urgency.? Not committed or focused ? marginal work ethic.? Interviewed poorly at the Combine and did not show an understanding of concepts on the white board.? Opted not to compete at the Senior Bowl and has approached offseason training as if he has already arrived and it shows in his body with minimal muscle definition or strength.? Has small hands and glaring ball security issues (32 career fumbles).? Really struggled handling the snow in Pinstripe Bowl (took two safeties) and will be troubled by the elements.? Needed to be coddled in college ? cannot handle hard coaching.?

Nawrocki then makes a strong prediction about Smith?s future.? ?Smith is a gimmick, overhyped product of the system lacking the football savvy, work habits and focus to cement a starting job and could drain energy from a QB room,? Nawrocki writes.? ?Will be overdrafted and struggle to produce against NFL defensive complexities.?

Smith will indeed be drafted high, due to the possibility that his positives eventualy will outweigh his negatives, allowing him to become the one thing every team needs:? A franchise quarterback.? If enough teams agree with Nawrocki, however, Smith may not be drafted as high as some would believe.

Source: http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2013/04/01/flynns-a-raider-for-14-fifth-and-a-conditional-pick/related/

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Strategies For VCs To Increase Startup Success Odds | TechCrunch

Editor?s note:?David Teten is a partner with?ff Venture Capital?and founder and chairman of?Harvard Business School Alumni Angels of Greater New York. Follow him on his blog or on Twitter?@dteten.

Lots of venture capitalists claim to add value to the companies in which they invest. But how do they do it?? And does it really produce better?returns?for their investors??We recently wrapped up a?study?on best practices of venture capitalists in creating portfolio company value through operational support, exploring exactly these questions.

We found that certain VCs are aggressively building out a focused portfolio operations skill set and recruiting more people with operational backgrounds. Based on a range of sources, we believe that most funds with well-developed portfolio operator models have top-quartile returns (typically above 20 percent IRR in the relevant time periods).

Given the mediocre median?returns?of the VC industry and the high?failure rate?of the typical entrepreneur, techniques to improve the odds of success are highly needed.

?Adding Value

VCs can add more value to their portfolios through team building, operations, perspective, skill building, customer development, analysis, and the network (the ?TOPSCAN? framework):

Team Building:?Designing and?recruiting?for a startup?s most important asset, its human capital base.

Operations:?Enhancing administrative, accounting, legal, and technological capabilities.

Perspective:?Strategy, competitive positioning, defining the target market, and scoping the product.

Skill Building:?Building the right skills, especially for senior management.

Customer Development:?Identifying and gaining access to the right customers.

Analysis:?How entrepreneurs measure, understand, and report the performance of their early-stage companies.

Network:?The cheapest and sometimes most value-added service that an investor can provide is access to his/her network, particularly to?potential investors?and acquirers.

The portfolio operator strategy has potential to boost returns.

A company?s need for these services is greatest in its earlier life. However, even among private-equity funds that invest in late-stage, stable, established companies, we see many such funds?building portfolio operations groups.?Later-stage, private-equity firms clearly believe that their portfolio companies benefit from a similar pool of operational talent, despite the fact that their companies are far more complete in their management and developed in their strategy than the companies backed by VCs.

The portfolio operator strategy has potential to boost returns. Our thesis that greater participation correlates with higher returns is consistent with two other formal studies: ?Returns to Angel Investors in Groups?, and ?Prediction and Control Under Uncertainty: Outcomes in Angel Investing.? Both studies found that higher levels of angel participation in investments, as measured by number of hours per week interacting with a portfolio company, correlates with higher returns.

In addition, VCs (particularly those focused on Internet investments) live in a social-media-enabled world where almost every investor has a very visible public resume on LinkedIn; many have a public blog; and blogs and sites such as?TheFunded.com?closely track their behavior. Social media footprints make it exceptionally easy for entrepreneurs to assess precisely how much value a potential investor can add and reach out to those investors specifically.?Deal origination?becomes very easy for firms with a strong reputation for adding value.

Current Practices

VCs have five main resources with which to increase portfolio company value: cash, brand, industry network, funding network and in-house expertise.

1. Cash.?A significant operational toolkit is expensive. Given the?low average returns of the VC industry, and the modest assets under management of VCs relative to the assets under management of a typical private-equity fund, many VCs simply cannot afford to invest meaningful dollars in a large portfolio acceleration infrastructure.
2. Brand.?The fact that a company has been funded by a well-respected fund/partner alone can increase a company?s odds of success, because that brand makes it easier for the company to attract talented employees and follow-on investors. By definition, startups have no brand at launch.
3. Industry network.?One entrepreneur observed about one of the most prominent VCs in America: ?[X]?s default response to all problems is to email introduce you to 3-10 people in his network who can help.?
4. Funding network.?Later-stage VCs pay careful?attention?to the earlier funders in a company, using the reputations of the funders as a proxy for their own diligence. The next-best asset to a large pool of capital in-house is the ability to easily help raise more capital in later rounds from past syndicate partners.
5. In-house expertise.?VCs can provide consulting, accounting, or operational resources, both directly from their own staff and from preferred service providers.

All of the resources above are synergistic, i.e. more success creates more cash, which strengthens the brand, which increases the industry and VC network, which strengthens the in-house expertise. This is one of the key reasons that venture capital is one of the few asset classes in which?past performance is predictive of future results.

There are three common categories of VCs in terms of attitude and practices toward investing and portfolio company support: financiers, mentors, and portfolio operators, ranked in order of increasing level of operational involvement.

1. Financiers: ?I?m a banker, not an operator.?

The financiers are the most traditional group of VC investors; one said he views venture capitalists as ?glorified commercial bankers.? Financiers believe that the most value added by a VC comes from carefully scrutinizing early-stage companies, generating leads, conducting a thorough due diligence process, and eventually investing the right amount of capital at the right valuation and structure. The relationship to their portfolio after making the investments primarily consists of monitoring.

Of course, the financiers are not completely detached from what is going on in their portfolio companies, but they tend to focus more on formal interaction. Examples include VCs taking board seats, suggesting structures for board meetings, and providing monthly reporting templates.

The most perfect example of a financier is?Correlation Ventures, which some have called the ?Moneyball? of venture capital. Even though the firm?s two managing partners are both former startup entrepreneurs, Correlation never takes board seats and has only modest operational involvement. They gain access to investment opportunities by offering a very rapid?investment decision (two weeks or less), with a very low hassle process, leveraging their large investment in predictive analytics. They have $165 million in assets under management. Other examples are?Right Side Capital Management?and?i2x.

2. Mentors: ?I try to be the CEO?s consigliere.?

Most VCs can be classed as mentors. Mentors believe their fund and personal assets can improve the performance of the ventures they invest in. The most important asset they bring to the table is their personal and professional network, which they leverage to strengthen portfolio companies. Throughout our research, we observed many examples of this: introductions to potential customers, suppliers, partners, and executive-level employees.

What distinguishes the mentors from the portfolio operators, however, is that they deliberately choose not to institutionalize the support they give to their portfolio companies. Support is almost always initiated by the entrepreneur and does not involve preset systems or processes. As one mentor said, ?My entrepreneurs have my cell and email address ? and I always answer them.? As a result, mentors assessing a new investment need to be comfortable that their input will be heard by the companies ? that the CEO is coachable.

In the past few years, there has been a?surge?of small, solo-GP funds, typically with under $40 million in assets. Although in many cases, these solo GPs have strong operational track records, they typically have limited resources to engage in-depth with their portfolio, and so would normally be classified as mentors.

3. Portfolio Operators: ?We have a structured, standard process for adding value.?

Portfolio operators agree with mentors that their unique personal and fund assets can be used to develop their portfolio companies. However, unlike mentors, portfolio operators do this in an institutionalized and structured way. Whereas mentors tend to be reactive in their support, portfolio operators pro-actively look for ways to improve the performance of their investments through systems and processes. We know of numerous instances in which companies took lower valuations to win portfolio operator VCs as investors versus other categories of VCs, because the entrepreneurs so valued the resources a portfolio operator could bring to bear. In other cases, entrepreneurs have offered board options or other sweeteners to highly attractive portfolio operator VCs.

The most common service portfolio operators offer their portfolio companies is recruiting assistance. Most of the VCs in this category not only provide personal references to interesting candidates, but also use their own websites as job boards for portfolio companies. First Round Capital takes this a step further by running a program in which they recruit MBAs for internships and full-time positions with their portfolio companies.

We find that portfolio operator VCs are building teams of employees that are unusually large for the VC industry and include many people with strong?operational backgrounds. These larger teams tend to be accompanied by a transition toward pyramidal organizations, which are increasingly becoming the norm in portfolio operator funds.

As Harvard Business School professor Noam Wasserman discusses in his?paper??Upside-down Venture Capitalists and the Transition Toward Pyramidal Firms: Inevitable Progression, or Failed Experiment?? ?VCs have long been structured as ?upside-down pyramids? in which general partners outnumber more junior employees. This phenomenon is attributable to the fact that VCs are ?knowledge intensive firms in which esoteric expertise predominates over standard knowledge.?

Moving Toward The Pyramid

The need to exchange rich information in the course of pre-investment activities (e.g. due diligence) serves as a dis-incentive to expand the firm beyond a certain size or adopt formal, pyramidal structures. Those structures are, to a certain extent, an emergent property of large and/or complex organizations, in which workers become specialized and need to structure their interactions more. Although later-stage VCs have the luxury of concrete quantitative data, early-stage VCs rely on more tentative information for which analysis cannot be easily delegated.

Post-investment activities such as operational support for portfolio companies, however, can be delegated and benefit from economies of scale. Pyramidal structures are the most efficient means of systematizing and delivering this support due to the benefits of leverage, delegation and specialization.

Three trends are accelerating the transition to pyramidal models and operational focus. First, the cost of starting a company has come down dramatically, and as a result young entrepreneurs with modest capital and only angel/Series A investors can find themselves leading significant businesses beyond their management capacity.

Second, the rate at which startups can scale has increased dramatically, so the judicious application of VC resources can have an exponential impact.

The pyramidal model ultimately won out in more mature knowledge-intensive industries.

Finally, we have moved to a more transparent world in which both VCs and entrepreneurs find it easier to conduct due diligence. This puts pressure on VCs to differentiate themselves substantively. The pyramidal model ultimately won out in more mature knowledge-intensive industries, such as law and investment banking, and the same may occur in venture capital.

Snapshots: Portfolio Operators

An example of a portfolio operator VC is?Andreessen Horowitz, which has raised $2.7 billion since it was founded in 2009 and has made investments in Airbnb, Facebook, Skype, Twitter, Instagram and many other highly successful startups. They give their portfolio companies structured support through one of their four operational support teams, focused on executive recruiting, marketing/PR, technology, and business development. The fund has seven partners and employs?more than 40 operational staff, helping portfolio companies with preparing negotiations, making client introductions and providing preferred suppliers.

My firm,?ff Venture Capital, has a similar strategy; it?has made more than 160 investments in more than 60 companies since 1999. As of October 2011, the firm had $38 million in assets under management and today has 16 full-time employees (including three general partners). We offer our portfolio companies resources,?including a?job board,?recruiting assistance,?strategy consulting, a?mentor network, a pool of service providers, a portfolio?executive community and?accounting services.

First Round Capital?is another example, with seven partners with more than $400 million in assets under management and 22 full-time employees. FRC has a wide range of initiatives to support portfolio companies. For example, they organize yearly CEO, CFO and CTO summits in which executives of all portfolio companies in certain roles come together, as well as a related online community. Because of the internal, closed nature of the platform, it has become a trusted source for advice (e.g. ?Our finances are out of control and we need a CFO yesterday; what should we do??). They offer the portfolio free access to a ?venture concierge,? a lightweight consulting and research service that helps their entrepreneurs save time on research-related tasks.

Google Ventures?has over 115 portfolio companies, makes 60-80 investments per year, and is investing north of $100 million per year. They leverage both Google?s vast resources and a dedicated?54-person?team, including 10 partners. Joe Kraus, partner,?observed, ?We believe helping companies plays more of a role than most people give it credit for.?

Given the economic constraints of the industry, how else can VCs systematically increase the odds that their portfolio companies will be successful?

This is a summary of the full original study, which was co-authored with Adham AbdelFattah, founder and CEO of CircleVibe and a consultant on leave from McKinsey & Co.;?Koen Bremer,?a consultant with the Boston Consulting Group in Amsterdam, Holland; and?Gyorgy Buslig, a consultant with McKinsey & Co. in Budapest, Hungary.??

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Source: http://techcrunch.com/2013/03/30/the-lower-risk-startup-how-venture-capitalists-increase-the-odds-of-startup-success/

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Crude oil leaks in Arkansas suburb after ExxonMobil pipeline ruptures

Isolde Raftery , NBC News ? ? ? 6 hrs.

An ExxonMobil pipeline rupture near Little Rock, Ark., Friday evening has resulted in a ?major oil spill,? according to the Environmental Protection Agency -- and ignited further debate over the transportation of crude oil in the U.S.

Up to 10,000 barrels sprang from the pipeline, according to an incident report filed to the National Response Center by ExxonMobil early Saturday morning. Twenty-two residents were evacuated from their homes, according to a statement on the ExxonMobil website.

Mayflower, Ark., Chief of Police Bob Satkowski told Channel 7 News in Little Rock that those residents had to leave their homes because of health risks from the crude oil fumes and possible fires.

In a statement on the company website, ExxonMobil downplayed the environmental concerns, saying that the air quality doesn?t likely present a human health risk, ?with the exception of high-pooling areas.?

KARK, an NBC affiliate station in Little Rock, reported that part of the pipeline runs through a water source that provides drinking water to nearly 400,000 residents in central Arkansas. The 20-inch wide pipeline goes through Lake Maumelle.

The pipeline, officially known as the Pegasus pipeline, transports heavy Canadian crude oil from Patoka, Ill. down to the Sunoco Logistics Nederland terminal in Texas, which feeds into Houston area refiners, according to the Exxon website. The pipeline, which can carry more than 90,000 barrels a day, was stopped Friday. ExxonMobil did not say when it would reopen.

EPA officials said the cleanup would be long and expensive, according to KARK. It was not reported who would pay for the cleanup.

The leak was first reported at 5 p.m. Friday, when someone called the National Response Center to report a drop in pipeline pressure.

Two hours later, a caller reported that there was a ?significant amount of material release.? The caller said the oil leak lasted about three hours.

An updated report early Saturday said up to 10,000 barrels were discharged and that the product had been released ?into flume pipes and into a pond, a tributary of Lake Conway.?

Friday?s spill prompted immediate response from critics of the proposed Keystone XL pipeline, which would transport about 800,000 barrels per day of Canadian crude oil to the Gulf Coast for refining.

Massachusetts Rep. Ed Markey took to Facebook to lash out against Canadian crude oil.

?This latest pipeline incident is a troubling reminder that oil companies still have not proven that they can safely transport Canadian tar sands oil across the United States without creating risks to our citizens and our environment,? Markey said. He is the top Democrat on the Natural Resources Committee.

?Tar sands oil is already the dirtiest, riskiest oil around, and should not be getting a free ride across America,? he continued. ?It?s time that we recognize the real effects producing and burning this oil will have on our climate, and the real world damage it can cause when it is spilled in our neighborhoods.?

This has been a bad week for crude oil public relations. On Wednesday, according to Reuters, a train carrying crude oil derailed in Minnesota and spilled up to 30,000 gallons.

Last week, the Pipeline and Hazardous Materials Safety Administration recommended fining ExxonMobil Pipeline Company $1.7 million for how the company responded to a crude oil pipeline failure in the Yellowstone River in Montana.

The Mayflower spill may be 10 times more significant than the Montana spill, which leaked 1,509 barrels.

The 1989 Exxon Valdez spill poured 260,000 to 750,000 gallons into Alaskan waters.

These spills pale in comparison, however,to the 2010 Deep Water Horizon oil spill, the most significant oil spill in the U.S., which leaked 4.9 million barrels into the Gulf Coast.

Reuters contributed reporting.

Source: http://feeds.nbcnews.com/c/35002/f/653381/s/2a30ca54/l/0L0Snbcnews0N0Cbusiness0Ccrude0Eoil0Eleaks0Earkansas0Esuburb0Eafter0Eexxonmobil0Epipeline0Eruptures0E1C91550A11/story01.htm

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