500 Startups’ Dave McClure is no stranger to controversy. He’s rarely lost an opportunity to broadcast his tone-deaf value system at the top of his lungs. So it should come as no surprise that the master of the F-bomb would release a demotional “promotional” video, UpRound Funk. This kind of thing stopped being a thing a long time ago. The video, a clear “First Round Ventures” derivative wasn’t a great idea when First Round started doing them, about ten years ago.
This video celebrates the wrong things like Getting multiple Term Sheets (term sheets aren’t a win, it’s not even the start of a win), Tossing around cash, and getting drunk on Tequila Fridays. It personifies the kind of values you try to pass down to your kids… if you’re Donald Trump.
Missing are the things worth celebrating… things that really matter like building great companies that employ and feed families. How about promoting building enterprises that solve global problems? It celebrates the shallow, selfish, self-promoting trash that gives the startup world a bad name. Raise money, drink booze, and hopefully scam some sucker into buying this trash.
There are 3 kinds of people who will watch this waste of time, energy and money:
- Evolved humans that dismiss it as self-congratulatory low purpose drivel
- Donald Trump Supporters
- People who need three options so I put this one here
I guess if you believe that any publicity is good publicity then this worked… as witnessed by me writing about it.
One last point. The prose are lame, the tune is worn. It’s an embarrassment in terms of production.
