Jonathan Heiliger is Former Frontier GlobalCenter CTO
Jonathan Heileger was a child prodigy. At 15, he was working at the Stanford Linear Accelerator. By 23 he was the CTO of what was then one of the largest website hosts. He once controlled a $100 million venture capital fund. Then the dot-com flame out came and Jonathan has spent the last six years bouncing from opportunity to opportunity. Now it looks like he has landed at Facebook, with the official title of Vice President of Technical Operations.
Now, I don’t know a ton about the dot-com bust, mainly because at the time I was busy talking to girls and doing keg stands (yeah I went to college…I’m no prodigy) not sitting in front of a computer (like I am now), but does anyone else get worried when these veterans of the dot-com bust (most of whom were on the “losing” side) resurface at some of today’s hottest companies?
Sure he comes with high praises, such as this from Digg CEO Jay Adelson,
“Jon’s advice is golden and his experience unique. We’ve crossed paths in various roles, from operations leadership to venture finance, and this guy simply has insight I’ve found critical.”
But I have to wonder if assembling all of these dot-com veteran’s such as Heileger at one company is sort of like the 2004 US Men’s Basketball team - a roster of superstar’s who can’t quite put it together in order to get a win. This is not a knock on Heileger, he’s forgot more then I probably know, but these patterns that are viewable now from less than a decade ago are starting to resurface again. Hopefully history won’t repeat itself, but sadly it looks like it already is starting to.
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2 comments ↓
dude,
first off, jonathan hasn’t been in too many flame out companies. Loudcloud is Opsware now. Opsware was just puchased by HP for $1.6BB. Second, even if he was involved in the bust, so was Sequoia, KPCB, Accel, Greylock, Peter Thiel, and anyone else over 30years old in the valley. Lastly, having been a part of a failing company is not a bad thing. At least you know what to look for and see it coming sooner than you would if you didn’t have that prior experience.
Its like the first time you did a keg stand you probably got beer all over the place and up your nose. The second and third times you got better.
Get it?
Guy,
Your point are well taken and yes with time you do get better, but when you look at many of those “high-profile” dot-com bust executives being hired again at these “new web” companies one has to wonder if history is repeating itself.
I am looking ahead a year or two when once again many a person is going to be dropped on their head because of these “Valley Mavericks” who are playing with other people’s money seem to operate in a manner that show no regard for sound business principles, such as profitability.
No knock against Jonathan, just a simple observation on the landscape as it sits.
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