Great interview with the panel - great insight and comments.

You said you're working on an Investors Bill of Rights protecting the investor - can I get a copy of it or your notes when you're done?

Looking forward to seeing you at the next Tucson Event and ACA as well.

Frank, I'm afraid this interview does not seem to add anything to the discussion on the current state of the venture investing industry. The issues regarding the VCs seem to have been previously discussed and the work of identifying things for Angels to invest in seems to be lacking in insight or any real research.

For Angels, cloud computing is definitely nothing more than a distribution channel and not an investment area. There are already too many big players in cloud computing that Angels simply do not have enough money to compete with. The time for Angels to have built up a cloud computing company is long past. Furthermore, Gartner reports that cloud computing will reach its saturation point sometime between 2009 and 2013, after which some of the vendors will be culled.

So when Angels talk about cloud computing they are not talking about investing in cloud computing at all but rather the same old song of developing applications, except this time they will be sold via the cloud, in addition to being sold in disc form and through downloads. So all we are talking about is an additional delivery system and not an increase in the size of the market for the applications and not a new investment area for Angels.

The task still remains of identifying what applications to invest in the development of. Nothing new was learned from the comment on cloud computing. I think if the Angels look at the amount of work they put into identifying cloud computing as an investment area, they will have to admit that it can't be that fast and easy to decide where to invest one's money. The amount of time one spends is the first clue that they have not found a proper investment.

It is no surprise that the cloud computing comment came from the person running the fast pitch competition. It seems TCA is in for another year of awards to opportunities that are not going to succeed.

To add more value to the discussion, people have to be ready to state a problem that can or should be fixed and the market size for that problem. It should also be shown how Angel money is adequate to take advantage of the opportunity. To simply say cloud computing is not saying anything.

Peter Cowen stated that the United States has a culture that is best suited for innovation and rewarding innovation. Actually it has more to do with the size of our population that can afford to purchase the innovative products. The culture that Cowen is referring to is sometimes referred to as spending power. Take these same products to a poorer country and it doesn't matter how much they want it if they can't afford it.

Just so you should know, I was telling the guy in charge of all podcasting for Apple about how wonderful and addictive the Frank Peters Show is!