In the high-stakes world of technology leadership due diligence is a two-way street. While a company’s board and VC partners are busy poking holes in your track record, you must be equally rigorous in auditing their foundational abilities. For a C-suite or VP-level candidate, the risk isn’t just an errant fit, it’s the professional and financial cost of joining an organization that may already be headed in the wrong direction.
For decades a 70+ square mile corridor in Northern California was the undisputed center of technological gravity. Today that core is still there, but the inherent pull unique to the location itself has changed in numerous ways.
The story of American tech in the 2020s isn’t a tale of Silicon Valley’s collapse. It’s something more subtle and interesting in that it is characterized by diffusion.
When a Fortune 500 board recruits a new Chief Technology Officer, or a late-stage startup courts a seasoned CFO, the conversation rarely centers on salary. The base pay is almost an afterthought as it can readily become a somewhat predictable number buried at the bottom of a very complicated document.
The first quarter of 2026 has officially closed and the data paints a picture of a venture capital landscape that is both maturing and aggressively pivoting toward long-term profitability. After the volatility of the early 2020s, Q1 2026 has emerged as a period of what might be termed disciplined exuberance. Total funding reached $98.5 billion globally across more than 7,800 deals.
A brief synopsis of venture capital events during the second quarter of 2024.
This period saw a rather significant shift in stability in certain sectors across all global regions along with a seemingly cautious optimism amongst those involved in pertinent activities.
Total investment rose slightly during this period compared to the previous quarter in 2023. This number was still significantly below that generated in 2021 and the early part of 2022. The trend seen was certainly one characterized by an air of caution and influenced by fewer exits along with increasing interest rates.
Investors have seemingly chosen to focus more on fundamentals as 2023 comes to a close. A rather significant decline was seen as compared to previous quarters, and the shift appears to be rather uniform across most of the sectors that we are involved with.
The global numbers are in and the total amount raised by companies amounted to a bit over $73 billion. This is down from the $85 billion that organizations put together during Q3 of the previous year, but the amount is up a bit from quarter two of 2023. Although the slight uptick may be welcome by many, it’s still important to note that the trend remains level if not still on a slight decline given the cash outlays viewed during the past year and a half.
The tallied marks for the second quarter of 2023 are in and, as expected, the amount of cash acquired by companies seeking assistance continues to follow the downward path. Approximately $65 billion was deposited in the coffers of about 6000 startups during this period which represents a considerable departure from Q2 of 2022 where 9500 organizations collected a total of $125 billion.
Seven years after beginning the process of manufacturing the Starliner at KSC and almost fifteen laps around the center orb since its announcement, Boeing has dropped yet one more shard in the socket of the commercial crew program. It turns out that some of the parachute chord they tossed in the machine has weaknesses that could be catastrophic. There’s also a small matter regarding protective tape that covers wiring harnesses.
Numbers have arrived for the most recent quarter and, to little surprise, overall Q1 2023 venture funding results have continued to follow a downward trend that started during the first quarter of 2022. Although two large exchanges occurred in the forms of OpenAi and Stripe, these were certainly the exception as drops were seen across the board including in the early-stage realm which has been somewhat resistant to general course inclinations.
Given the recent news about a number of large companies taking the culling machine to sizeable numbers of their employees it seemed like a good time to revisit one of the most important lessons many have learned during this type of market movement. Namely, this can be one of the best times to bring on additional headcount due to a number of factors.