At iSelect, we focus on investing outside of Silicon Valley.
I’ve worked with many venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, and they are extraordinarily good at what they do. What they do is invest in IT technologies, media technologies, and entertainment technologies.
Not many of these guys have been on a farm. They do some healthcare, not a lot. They don’t understand materials technologies. They don’t understand automotive. There are a whole bunch of other fields where they understand them generally, but they are not an expert.
Silicon Valley is very very good at about four or so key industries. In the United States, there are probably 60 or 70 major industries that have sales in excess of $1 billion a year.
iSelect is focused on everyone else because venture capital is primarily concentrated around Silicon Valley. Venture capital has been wildly successful in those industries, and growing those industries. Venture capital has been wildly successful and completely changed the productivity equation around the world in the industries it concentrates on.
Why don’t we take that same principle and apply it in St. Louis, in Cleveland, in Chicago, in Memphis, in Kansas City? In St. Louis that means agriculture; in Kansas City that means animal health; in Memphis, that means logistics.
Each part of the country has different skills, and we are essentially just taking the Silicon Valley model elsewhere. There’s no reason to compete with Silicon Valley; it is doing the job just fine.
