Happy New Year! As we enter into 2005, I have been reading pundit after pundit predicting the future. Sure, it's entertaining reading. But I'm not much for predictions. While there is no question that omniscience would be extraordinarily valuable in the venture business (and there are no shortage of VCs who think they have it), I do not personally believe that my job is to predict the future.

I believe that the job of a good Venture Capitalist is to find great people with great ideas. After all, VCs don't build companies — entrepreneurs do. We just provide the capital to make it possible for entrepreneurs to bring their vision to reality. So while some of my brethren in the Venture Capital industry are picking their sectors and choosing their investment themes, I will be meeting with as many smart people as I possibly can, because one of them may be the next Bill Gates or Scott McNealy or Scott Cook (each of whom sat before my partners in the not too distant past, armed with a vision and a passion for the technology they were building but only a fragment of the great companies they went on to build).

Investing behind great people is a far sounder strategy than investing behind great ideas. Great ideas are an important part of any startup. But they are merely a byproduct of great people. Great ideas are an indicator of great people and not vice versa. If a team comes to you with some great ideas that can be applied to solving a known problem (be it in RF or price optimization or consumer electronics or lithography), the exciting thing is that you have met a team of people who can come up with great solutions to problems, not that they have come up with the great solution to a particular problem. Because the one thing that is certain about startups is that their course is uncertain. Startups are organic. They evolve. And the ability to thrive during the course of that evolution is what distinguishes great corporations and great executives from mediocre ones.

So my goal in 2005 is to meet great entrepreneurs. It was my goal in 2004, and my goal in 2003. And, while I'm not omniscient, I'm guessing it will be my goal in 2006. Great entrepreneurs are the lifeblood of Venture Capital and I consider myself extraordinarily lucky to be surrounded by so many smart, pragmatic, lithe and principled individuals. I enter 2005 with nothing but optimism and excitement, and a great admiration for all those entrepreneurs with whom I work and with whom I'll meet over the coming year.