"It's always darkest before it's pitch black"
Owen Thomas ยท 10/09/08 07:00PMBad times have hit sunnily optimistic northern California. Does it matter if the mayhem on Wall Street had any real connection with the tech-powered Silicon Valley economy? Some of the region's most influential power brokers believe it will โ and by pushing others around, they can make perception reality. A helpful insider has provided notes from a recent meeting of Sequoia Capital, a backer of Apple, Cisco, and Google which has risen to become the Valley's preeminent venture-capital firm. Michael Moritz had summoned CEOs of Sequoia's portfolio companies to tell them to prepare for a long, hard downturn. The bottom line: All startups must become cash-flow positive โ in other words, earn more than they spend. Or in other, other words, act like the real businesses they always should have emulated. Here are what our tipster claims are notes from the meeting, apparently forwarded by one of the attendees: