via NYTimes - read the whole thing
At 10 o’clock on the morning of Demo Day, there was a traffic jam in Mountain View. Priuses, Teslas and Fiskers queued on North Shoreline Boulevard, on the way to the Computer History Museum. Inside, an hour before the presentations began, obsession was in the air; also insomnia, caffeine and paranoia. The prominent venture-capital firms were represented in force — Sequoia Capital, Bessemer Venture Partners and Andreessen Horowitz — as were the Hollywood investors, which included Ari Emanuel and his associates from W.M.E.; a trio of superciliously grinning representatives from C.A.A.; and Guy Oseary, Madonna’s manager and Ashton Kutcher’s partner at A-Grade Investments. The man who attracted the most attention of all was Ron Conway, a founder of S.V. Angel and an early investor in Google, PayPal, Facebook and Twitter. Conway is a regal personage with a sweep of thick white hair and a stately manner. He greeted well-wishers and acolytes with a wry, avuncular smile, distributing his business card as a priest might hand out alms. Less-prominent investors cautiously approached founders, asking questions designed to obscure interest and commitment.