Tied closely to venture capitalists in Silicon Valley, the renewable capitalist have been losing big time in the marketplace, the victims of foreign, largely Chinese competition, and the burgeoning natural gas industry.

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Angel investors and incubators do not provide enough assistance and do not encourage startups to think big enough, according to famed venture capitalist Vinod Khosla.

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The notion that Mr O'Connor has turned from free-wheeling arch-capitalist into a latter-day Big Brother is ironic indeed.

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Last March was a big month in the life of Ryan Drant , a venture capitalist with New Enterprise Associates in Baltimore.

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Unlike eastern Europe, all Arab countries (those with oil wealth and those without) have capitalist economies, in which prices and private enterprise play a big role.

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That is going to make it hard for a start-up CEO to persuade a venture capitalist that he is going to get in on the next big thing.

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And so did 50 other big-shot Silicon Valley types, including Napster cofounder Sean Parker and venture capitalist Heidi Roizen.

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They learned from a venture capitalist on Pioneer's board that many large private-equity firms were looking to make big bets in the energy sector.

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