In Support of Richie Hecker
It’s funny / nostalgic to see all these negative comments about Richie. When I first met him, I had the exact same negative reaction to him as well (I even wrote a mean email to [newtech] about Richie, haha). I had never seen someone who was so unafraid of / unabashed by self-promotion, free-expression, community participation, whatever you want to call it. Having said that, over the past year, as I have had a chance to interact with Richie more closely, and maybe Richie started to grow on me, and I have begun to see how valuable of an asset Richie is to the community. He does reach out to everyone, and he does (at least attempts to) talk to everyone, he makes himself available to anyone that may have an idea for a company, who may lack the technical, logistics knowledge around how to bring the ideas to life. He does have some credible connections into senior investment professionals at local VC firms and angel groups. And he has introduced me to some incredible entrepreneurs, that I brought to our firm to meet with a couple of general partners. He may not have started a Digg or a DoubleClick, but he does know how to launch web businesses that are useful to the communities, and has very valuable industry contacts. I have gone to a few very informative events where Richie helped put together a very knowledgeable group of industry insiders as panel. Some people complain about the lack of ecosystem in NYC that nurtures and provides collaboration for tech community.. I think what Richie has tried to do, is exactly what we need to do (we need more of that), in order to bring collaboration and communication here.. Honestly, some of the things Richie does, still bother me, but I really appreciate all the things he has done and respect him as a valuable member of the NY tech community.
So please don’t be so quick in judging Richie.. Try to have an open mind, and invite him out for a drink. If you still hate him after that, I’d be surprised..
