Well I did it again.

In all of the meetings I’ve had raising capital for company’s I’ve been a part of I’ve only done it once before.  Numerator = 2 and denominator = about 100. 

And the first time was after a 20 minute verbal assault where we had been set up to be taught a lesson. It really had nothing to do with our deal – or their interest. 

What it was – it was really just some strings had been pulled and one VC doing a favor for another).

Basically back in 1999 while raising our Series D - $100M round for what was then called Evoke – my co-founder and I were hammered by a purposely bad tempered, unprofessional proverbial you-know-what-hole for not knowing where our lead investor stood on our round and how or why a potential local investor might participate in the round.

Simply - we were set up.  And after taking 20 minutes of being screamed at – we shut down our presentation at slide 3 and packed up.

And I did it again yesterday.

Basically after realizing that I hadn’t finished one of the 20 sentences I had started in response to 20 open ended – I don’t have a clue where you want me to go questions – and looking at my laptop stopped at slide 3 – I did it.   Actually finishing sentences implies I was close to finishing.  I was consistently cut off at word 6 of every sentence. 

It might have been the blue blood affectation.  It could have been the “I’m the smartest human on earth” boredom having to tolerate sharing physical space with us.  Maybe it was the smarmy smirk.

I shut down my laptop and I packed up.  And I waited patiently.  This too shall pass.