(Photo: Flickr.com/LeWeb3)

Yesterday, word leaked that former Mashable editor Ben Parr is launching a seed stage VC fund targeted at celebrity investors. The cofounders of Tracks.by, a platform for music artists, are also partners in Mr. Parr's fund. The tech world, as it's wont to do, erupted into a collective scoff: A star-studded investment firm helmed by a “disgraced” journalist, who was fired for blabbing about his salary, doesn't sound like the stuff of Sand Hill Road.

Unwilling to let an opportunity for backseat quarterbacking pass them by, tech bloggers immediately swooped in to offer their analysis of Mr. Parr’s newest venture.

The Wall Street Journal chimed in with a cautionary tale for Mr. Parr, penned by a journalist-turned-VC-turned-journalist-again, who quit his ink-stained day job during the first bubble to become an investor. Just because reporters write about startups, it seems, does not make us experts on the innerworkings of a business. Writes the WSJ:

When journalists give up their penny-a-line trade and think they are financiers and business executives, you are in a bubble....We wish Mr. Parr and his team of neophytes well, but he has a lot of work to prove that writing about startups in any way prepares him for the very different life as a VC.

Venture Beat writer Jolie O'Dell--a former coworker of Mr. Parr's--took a similar tact, questioning the trio's "capacity to run a credible investment outfit." She hammered that point home by making the post's URL "O Rly?"

Kernel Mag founder Milo Yiannopoulos, who himself is no stranger to blog controversy, took a more personal approach, calling Mr. Parr a "tragic figure" who got "carried away with his own celebrity:"

Since then, Parr has cut a rather tragic figure on the international conference circuit, his lanyards showing white space where the name of an employer ought to be. A year later almost to the day of his termination, however, Parr, who in a delicious slice of faint praise was described as “relentlessly nice” by waspish Valley journo Owen Thomas, is returning to the limelight with… yup, you guessed it. A venture capital firm.

And as for the "celebrity" aspect of the fund, PandoDaily pointed out that nary a celebrity is currently to be found:

First off, it’s a celebrity fund, but its grand entrance to the scene included scant actual funds and nary a celebrity. That’s a bad start. At best the oddly named group – the first financial vehicle with a hashtag as part of its name? – is a nascent concept, with a fundraising “target in the single digit millions” to quote the friendly launch article by Forbes’ Tomio Geron. The anchor investors are not celebrities themselves, but rather the business managers of Brittney Spears, Lil Wayne, and Drake. In the world of celebrity, close doesn’t count.

To be fair, as the New Yorker noted in its profile of Scooter Braun, talking to the managers of stars does seem to be the first step towards clinching that celebrity investment. As we mentioned in our profile of Rap Genius, Troy Carter, Lady Gaga's manager and an investor in Tracks.by, has been known to stop by the offices of Andreessen Horowitz.

Lucky for Mr. Parr, celebrities may be less tied to Silicon Valley tradition. Besides, if Michael Arrington is any indication, he can always get back his day job.

Fare thee well, Mr. Dixon!

The news broke this weekend, but it's now official: New York tech mainstay Chis Dixon is joining Andreessen Horowitz as a general partner. And--in a loss for the local tech scene--he'll be picking up stakes for Menlo Park.

But they don't even have converted factory spaces for their coworking spaces!

Just this May, the firm poached Foursquare's Tristan Walker to be an entrepreneur in residence.*

Mr. Dixon confirmed the move on his blog:

Spending time there, I had the same feeling I have whenever I meet a great startup: “This is obviously the future, why didn’t someone do it before?”

So I’m super excited to say that I’m joining a16z as their seventh General Partner. I’ll specialize in consumer internet investments but will be open to anything ambitious that involves technology. I’ll be based in California, but plan to do a lot of investing in NYC.

So it's goodbye for now, but not forever. That's not keeping his fellow NYC techies from giving him a bittersweet send-off, though:

Fantastic fit. We’ll miss you in NYC but I’m sure we’ll see you around :) Huge congrats! RT @cdixon: a16z cdixon.org/2012/11/19/a16…

— Alex Rainert (@arainert) November 19, 2012

Congrats @cdixon on the big move! You will always be a big apple to us. Back to work shoulder chipping NYC. #LoveNY pandodaily.com/2012/11/19/chr…

— Yaron Samid (@YaronSamid) November 19, 2012

Congrats Chris - big loss for NYC “@cdixon: a16z cdixon.org/2012/11/19/a16…”

— John Maloney (@JohnMaloney) November 19, 2012

And he's already getting big ups from his new neighbors:

@sacca @cdixon next step is getting him down to Manhattan Beach ;-)

— Peter Pham (@peterpham) November 19, 2012

*An earlier version of this post incorrectly misstated that Mr. Walker had been based primarily in New York. Betabeat regrets the error. 

High Peaks cofounder Brad Svrluga, whom Sidetour cofounder Mark Webster thinks is handsome. (Photo: VYou)

When we first joined VYou back in its beta phase, it seemed like just another platform for innocuous oversharing, albeit a higher maintenance one: instead of oversharing from bed in your PJs, you had to look rather presentable to record a video of yourself.

But now, as celebrities flock to the video question and answer platform as a new way to connect with fans, VYou is focusing on building out another aspect of its site: video-based knowledge sharing. In the upcoming weeks, VYou will be assembling groups of experts in various areas. Users can ask them questions and get responses directly from the experts.

To inaugurate this upcoming feature, VYou has launched an "Ask Angel Investors & Venture Capitalist" group, featuring a slew of New York bigwigs like Dave Tisch, Adam Ludwin and Alex Taussig.

"This is the first group that we’ve done and it’s the first one that’s really focused on expert knowledge," Steve Spurgat, VYou's CEO, told Betabeat by phone. "In the past we’ve had channels; many of what were formerly channels will become groups. But we’re evolving this even further into the ability for people to define themselves as having a certain level of knowledge or a certain interest and then be able to accept question or answer questions that are around that interest. This group is our first foray into that."

Mr. Spurgat admitted that this Q&A knowledge sharing effort does bear some resemblance to Quora, but that asking and recording answers on video "gives a more intimate view into how people are sharing information." It also lends legitimacy to experts, who users might otherwise assume have assistants run their social media accounts. Of course, just because you're video recording your answer doesn't necessarily keep you from bullshitting.

"Venture capitalists are definitely people that others want to learn from and interact with, but they don’t always feel very accessible," Mr. Spurgat added.

And yes, all of the VCs that VYou got to participate in this group so far are investors in VYou themselves (surprise, surprise).

The folks at VYou were kind enough to allow Betabeat to ask a handful of questions of the investors and we expended a lot of energy controlling ourselves from asking flat out, "Do you ever feel like you're full of shit?" Instead, our questions touched on hardware vs. software startups, vulture capital and portfolio financial metrics. We also asked, "What's a thing that a portfolio company could spend money on that would annoy you?"

Mr. Taussig was unfailingly diplomatic in his response, but when "forced," he replied that "other than gross offenses like private planes," he would have to go with "spending a lot of money on paid advertising before you're ready." Mr. Nova was equally gracious. "Most of the companies we invest in are pretty smart with our money. We typically don't like to see fancy office spaces or furniture or crazy travel and entertainment budgets. But in 20 years of investing I haven't seen a company overspend in these areas." Mr. Tisch said that really excessive founder salaries "don't make sense."

You can watch some of their answers here, or embedded below.

Marnie: "No, I think he's hot. And what he does is so interesting."

Jessa: "What is a venture capitalist? It sounds like some sort of explorer but that can't be the case."

A few things in the shows portrayal of the VC are of note:

For example, the fact that 'Girls' creator Lena Dunham has stated in interviews that many a character and story-line have been inspired by and drawn from personal experiences, either of her own or her friends'.

Another is that the show does archtypes—especially those pertaining to Brooklyn—particularly well.

For example, if you can't say you don't know anybody with money in the tech community who lives in Williamsburg, who buys ostensibly interesting modernist furniture (that's really just whatever's at the front of the closest CB2), who fancies themselves somewhat creative with creative hobbies to go with said self-designation, you may not be paying close enough attention. Also, are you surprised that the first VC character to have a significant plotline on a buzzed-over show is a man? You shouldn't be.

And maybe you've heard stories about many a VC being an "asshole." Or the inter-personal relations of certain VCs looking for love in all the wrong places. Maybe Lena Dunham has, too.

Either way, the character was part of a brilliant setup for one of the funniest moments in the show's run so far. Even better was the small attention to detail, especially where the show's writers' ideas about how a VC would act in this situation are concerned.

We've annotated and transcribed some of the scenes for your viewing and reading pleasure, up above. How right are they about this type of person? And even more:

Is it anybody in particular that they're right about?

We'll let you be the judge.*

[*Unless, of course, you know anybody who may reflect this character. In which case, shout.]

fkamer@observer.com | @weareyourfek