The best VC in action now

Who is tops? Just a little while ago it was obviously Moritz at Sequoia, what with Google and then YouTube going ballistic in the early 2000s. Even recently selling Flip to Cisco was huge.

Right now, I agree with @cdixon that Fred Wilson at Union Square is probably the guy. Both for iconic deals (Feedburner, Twitter), impact in personal publishing/social, and being among the first with the VCs should aim smaller agenda. Kudos. And hurray for NYC.

For me as an entrepreneur, the guy who has been far more influential on my thinking, however, is Paul Graham. His web writings are amazing, his cult of college-age-faboys is inspiring, and it's fun to keep up with the many many companies floating around Ycombinator. Most important though: a whole philosophy of starting companies, being scrappy, failing fast, refining, being creative, etc. as a rewarding way of life. Now that's why people start companies!

Caveat: this doesn't translate into "you want these guys to back you". There is much else that goes into the success of your startup. Depends a lot on your business. I know first hand.
If you look at the blooming of seed-stage funds like NYC Seed here in NY, and the many ultra-light startups like Justin.tv, you see there has been a ton of impact. Either way the wind has been blowng against the mega-funds, as lovely as the Facebooks etc sound.

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