Bill Maris: It's important to realize that half the possibilities of your choice are wrong.

Absrtact: Bill Maris, executive director of Google Ventures, is somewhat disappointed by the mechanism of the Silicon Valley venture. The VC, who holds 1.5 billion dollars, led Google Ventures to invest 75 new projects in 2013, including a $930 million Monsanto deal with Climate Corp.

Bill Maris, executive director of Google Ventures, is somewhat disappointed with the mechanism of the Silicon Valley venture. The 1.5 billion-dollar VC has led Google Ventures to invest in 75 new projects in 2013, including a $930 million Monsanto for Climate Corp. and RetailMeNot IPO. Google Ventures has been operating in Silicon Valley for 5 years, with all its money coming from the parent company's Google investment.

Perhaps we can learn more about Google Ventures from the following excerpt from Re/code's interview with him:

Re/code:google Ventures's role in Google's Panorama strategy differs from Google Capital and Google X's internal positioning, and is there a competitive relationship?

Bill Maris: We help each other to complement each other, there is no competition. Google X, like Google Ventures, looks at bold, forward-looking ideas and is committed to providing them with financial support to make these ideas come true. But our starting point is different, Google X does not care about the investment return of the supported projects, it is more like a "dream factory", the project itself is more sci-fi surreal color.

Re/code:google Ventures, as a venture capital, is bound to expect the economic benefits of investment projects, how to balance the pursuit of bold, forward-looking ideas and economic benefits?

Bill Maris: There is no conflict between the idea of economic gain and the prospect of a forward-looking business, which is not a non-profit organization, and often a bold and innovative company whose value can be socially recognised and thus financially rewarded. As for how long the process has been, for example, if I were to set up a venture capital fund myself, I would need to find 10-100 investors and fund my venture capital, and those partners would want me to earn it back in 7 or 8 years, so I had to invest my money in different projects within 3 years. Such investor psychology determines the current majority of VCs in the choice of project pressure, and tends to choose in the development phase of the later stage of the start-up enterprise.

However, technological innovation and breakthroughs take time. At Google Ventures, our fund is in the annual, we can invest all 300 million of these funds, can not make any investment, we do not even need to calculate the internal rate of return, our investors (Google) will not ask us when we can make money back. This is of great significance to the choice of investment projects.

Re/code: What's the secret to discovering potential startups?

Bill Maris: First of all, it's important to realize that half of your options are wrong, maybe the wrong company, the wrong product design, the wrong product implementation, or the market is not ripe, like why Friendster didn't succeed, and Facebook succeeded.

I think one of the key factors is people, if someone reminds me of those successful people, like Tony Fadell of Nest and Matt Rogers, or Uber Travis Kalanick, they have the extraordinary ability to focus, solve problems, And it's extremely important for companies and teams so that their projects usually develop very quickly so that investors are more secure in terms of time and benefits. Another point is the ability to adapt to changes in the environment. There is also as the CEO of a start-up company, whether with the wisdom of employing people, the group built to the right team.

Re/code: Very focused on the application of data and data models, what variables are in these models, and many variables seem unpredictable, such as people, news reports, IPO markets ... To what extent does the data model influence the decisions of Google Ventures?

Bill Maris: We have very experienced statistical teams who, under the leadership of Graham Spencer, have helped us to better utilize the wisdom that data brings to us, and we know at the same time that data cannot be used as a means of decision-making, but as a tool of reference. In Google Ventures, the reference of the data is important, our decision is not the majority vote, but the courage, we certainly need good data as a rational support.

Re/code: What do you think about the cool planet of your investment company that is openly challenged by the verge?

Bill Maris:the Verge's columnist, Ben Popper, is questioning the founder of Cool Planet, not the company itself, and the verge article is clearly divided into two parts. We make mistakes, of course, but I think there is still a chance of success in the project of cool planet biofuels such as corn and other by-products, and they are building test machines from funds raised by other investors. If we sometimes inevitably fail to invest in some overly ambitious projects, on the other hand, if we are only "security cards", it will be a failure for us.

Re/code: Do startups that get Google Ventures always get the attention and expectation of the outside world to achieve a more successful self-realization?

Bill Maris: I certainly hope so, but at the same time it needs to be explained that Google ventures is usually only a minority shareholder of these companies and is not about the company's decisions and trends. To succeed, a start-up company needs resources from all aspects, and there is no single factor to ensure the company's success or failure. If the company that Google Ventures invest in itself is flawed, it will eventually fail, but fortunately, in 230 companies invested by Google Ventures, the failed company is within 10.