VC Recruiter Jon Holman on the VC Job Scene, Nine Months Into Downturn
Jon Holman is a San Francisco-based recruiter who has hired roughly 40 general partners and five times as many CEOs in his nearly 30-year career. His clients include Accel Partners, Lightspeed Venture Partners, Mayfield Fund and Opus Capital, among about 50 others. We just spoke a bit about the venture industry, how quickly it’s contracting and where many VCs may next find themselves. Yesterday, a reader seemed to take issue with the word “exodus” to describe what’s happening in the venture industry right now. But it does seem like many more VCs are leaving the industry than joining it or finding homes at other firms. What are you seeing? There’s a lot of movement; there’s no doubt about that -- except “exodus” implies that they are leaving by choice, and that’s not generally the case. It’s not just 10 or 20 or 30 people who are looking for new jobs. A lot of people have to find something new to do. This isn’t the first time that the population of VCs is going to go down, but this will be the biggest percentage. And they’ll all have to go somewhere.
