The companies founded two or three years ago have been struggling with the assumption that follow-on investments would be as easy to get as the initial funding. They're not getting [the follow-on] funding, and so they're telling people that VCs don't want to spend. We do, but more on the traditional companies missed during the dot-com bubble.

[This consumer is not out in front, far from it. This consumer is] part of the herd. They're word-of-mouth creatures, ... They're asking their friends and colleagues, 'Are you using the camera on your cellphone yet? Me, neither.' But if they ask around and people say, 'Yeah, I use it all the time,' then they'll rethink and try it out.

When I go meet with a company that's No. 1--a Microsoft or Cisco or SAP--one of the things I hear a lot is how mean it is out there. Being No. 1 these days means you become the natural target.

[These days, it may be easier to raise startup money than it was during the boom. No, it doesn't seem that way. But that's a perception promulgated by precarious or now deceased startups.] The companies founded two or three years ago have been struggling with the assumption that follow-on investments would be as easy to get as the initial funding, ... They're not getting [the follow-on] funding, and so they're telling people that VCs don't want to spend. We do, but more on the traditional companies missed during the dot-com bubble.

There is no new technology in the iPod.

They're thinking, 'If I or my organization were to adopt this new technology, how would it change our competitiveness?'