DealBook: HGGC Strikes Deal for MyWebGrocer

As giants like Amazon.com move into the online grocery business, an investment firm is betting that a technology company can help traditional retailers fight back.

HGGC, a middle-market private equity firm formerly known as Huntsman Gay Global Capital, has taken control of MyWebGrocer, a 14-year-old company that provides Web and digital marketing services for brick-and-mortar grocers.

Terms of the deal were not disclosed. But people briefed on the matter said the size of HGGC’s investment was on the higher end of its deal range of $25 million to $100 million.

HGGC is buying control of the company from the Stripes Group, an investment firm focused on technology and consumer products companies.

With the transaction, HGGC is hoping that MyWebGrocer can help clients like Kroger, Ralphs and smaller grocers fend off incursions by nontraditional rivals. The company claims more than 140 national retailers as customers, providing them with e-commerce services, Web sites and digital circulars.

MyWebGrocer, which is already profitable, is expected to report more than $50 million in revenue in its current fiscal year, according to Richard Tarrant, MyWebGrocer’s founder and chief executive. It posted a revenue gain of nearly 60 percent in 2012 from the year earlier.

“We’ve become the digital arm of the brick-and-mortar grocery chain,” Mr. Tarrant told DealBook.

It is a space that Amazon and Wal-Mart Stores are clearly considering. On Monday, Amazon expanded its groceries program to Los Angeles for members of its Prime service, and the company plans to move into about two dozen other markets through next year.

“The bigger picture is that the industry is driving this direction,” Richard F. Lawson, a managing partner of HGGC, told DealBook. “It’s not just about delivering groceries. It’s about Amazon.”

But he added that unlike Amazon, MyWebGrocer did not need to build out refrigerated warehouse space. Instead, it will draw on existing stores that the company links together with its software.

Just as interesting to HGGC is the company’s digital marketing business, including advertising on social media that product makers can use to better focus on customers. Mr. Lawson cited the high valuations placed on e-marketing companies like ExactTarget, which Salesforce.com bought last week for $2.5 billion.

HGGC is hoping that its latest deal will turn out to be as successful as its investment in Hybris Software, an e-commerce services provider for corporations. Last week, SAP agreed to buy that company in a deal reportedly worth more than $1 billion.

Amazon, Bracing for Strikes in Germany, Plans to Hire Engineers

Werner Vogels, the chief technology officer at Amazon, said the company chose Germany because it was the largest market in Europe and because Berlin was a good source of qualified software engineers and application developers.

Mr. Vogels said Amazon’s sales of cloud-computing were accelerating in Europe, as technology managers sought to cut costs and were increasingly reassured that sensitive corporate data could stay secure in remote data centers.

“All I can say is we are very happy with the development of cloud-computing sales in Europe,” Mr. Vogels said during an interview at the cloud-computing conference in Berlin, which was attended by 935 software developers.

The engineers would work with a team at Amazon’s European headquarters in Dublin but be based in Berlin and Dresden.

At the same time, the U.S. tech giant is girding for possible strikes by workers at two of its largest distribution centers in Europe.

Amazon employees in Bad Hersfeld who belong to ver.di, a German trade union, voted Monday to authorize a strike. Mechthild Middeke, a ver.di spokeswoman organizing workers at the Bad Hersfeld plant, said 97.6 percent of ver.di workers at the facility had voted to strike.

The employees want Amazon to sign a collective bargaining agreement used by some local employers, which ver.di says could increase the annual pay and benefits of Amazon workers as much as a third. Amazon has refused to sign the agreement, arguing that the U.S. company pays workers at levels comparable to other local online retailers, Ms. Middeke said.

Ver.di wants Amazon to pay the roughly 9,000 workers at its eight logistics centers in the country as “retailing” workers under German law, which would qualify them for the higher pay. Amazon says the workers are “logistics” employees, who on average earn €9.30, or $12.10, an hour in their first year of service and more than €10 an hour thereafter.

“We will do everything possible should there be strikes to make sure that our customers in Germany are served,” said Christine Höger, a spokeswoman for Amazon Germany in Munich. Ms. Höger said that Amazon paid its logistics employees more than comparable German businesses pay for logistics workers.

Ver.di members at Amazon’s distribution center in Leipzig voted last month to strike. Dates for the strikes have not been set, Ms. Middeke, the union representative, said. She declined to say if her union represented a majority of workers at either Amazon facility.

“A work stoppage will take place in the near future,” Ms. Middeke said.

Ms. Höger said Amazon had attempted to reach agreement with ver.di representatives, but had made little progress.

“We had several informal talks with ver.di over the past few weeks,” Ms. Höger said during an interview. “While we are willing to continue our conversation, we also see too little common ground for negotiations at the moment.”

Heribert Jöris, the managing director of Handelsverband Deutschland, the main association representing employers in the German retailing industry, said he estimated the chances of a strike at Amazon’s facilities as “very high.”

The employers’ association in January canceled a nationwide collective bargaining agreement covering workers at 100,000 retailing businesses, saying it wanted changes in compensation and work practices that date from the 1950s.

Employers and unions are expecting to begin negotiations on a new contract within weeks. Ver.di this year organized a strike by workers at Zara, the clothing retailer, and has threatened work stoppages at Globus, a discount chain, Mr. Jöris said. But in neither case have employers agreed to new wage pacts, he added.

“I’m pretty sure there will be strikes now,” Mr. Jöris said. “But that doesn’t mean the strikes will be successful.”

Mr. Vogels, a Dutchman who is based in Seattle, declined to comment on the labor situation at Amazon’s retailing operations in Germany.

The new engineers would be hired by a division of Amazon, Amazon Web Services, over the next 12 months. The developers would work for a new subsidiary, Amazon Development Center Germany, which would make applications and other software tools for customers of Amazon’s cloud-computing business.

Amazon offers its European business customers like Royal Dutch Shell; Kempinski Hotels, a chain based in Geneva; and Unilever the option of storing their data in computing centers that it runs inside the European Union to satisfy a law that requires business to handle the data of E.U. citizens within the 27-nation bloc.

Jeremy Ward, a senior vice president for information technology at the Kempinski chain, which is majority owned by the sovereign wealth fund of Thailand, is in the middle of a five-year project to shift its corporate computer functions to Amazon’s cloud.

Mr. Ward said Kempinski was on track to cut its annual I.T. costs by 40 percent as it moved functions like an internal employee telephone directory, training videos and corporate news, currently run by 143 Kempinski servers, into the cloud.

“I think increasingly businesses are dropping their preconceived notions and are beginning to take advantage of the savings in the cloud,” Mr. Ward said in an interview at the conference.

Gucci Mane Strikes Down God’s Son: “Nas’ F*cked Up Right Now” [Video]

Atlanta rapper Gucci Mane is no longer keeping his disses local, now taking a public jab at New York rap veteran Nas and his publicized financial woes.

Speaking to rapper Rocko, who acknowledged Nas' Life is Good selling without ample promotion, Gucci took a jab at the rap vet's financial security.

"Does Nas make a 150 blood money per week off a mixtape," Gucci asked in a video. "Yeah, blood money. Nas' f*cked up right now. Yeah. Me and you got [whips], I just bought me [something]. Don’t you have a drop top? … You got the white one, I’m getting the black one? Nas got one? [laughs]" (Hood Affairs TV)

DealBook: Mayer Strikes First Deal at Yahoo With Acquisition of Stamped

Stephen Lam/ReutersMarissa Mayer, chief of Yahoo.

Marissa Mayer promised earlier this week that Yahoo‘s deal-making was likely to revolve around smaller add-on acquisitions. On Thursday, she proved that she meant what she said.

The Internet company announced that it had purchased Stamped, a start-up focused on mobile products, for an undisclosed amount. The deal amounts to an “acqui-hire,” Silicon Valley’s term for buying a start-up for its talent.

The Stamped deal fits into two major initiatives that Ms. Mayer, Yahoo’s chief executive, mentioned on the company’s earnings call on Monday. One was a focus on smaller deals, none of which were likely to be blockbuster size.

“Many acquisitions and most acquisitions, a vast majority, are less than $100 million,” she told analysts on the call. “And so we’re looking for smaller-scale acquisitions that align well overall with our businesses.”

The other is a race to build up Yahoo’s mobile offerings, an area that she described as lacking at the company.

“While we’ve made progress, Yahoo hasn’t capitalized on the mobile opportunity,” she said. “We haven’t effectively optimized our Web sites, we’ve underinvested in our mobile front-end development and we’ve splintered our brands.”

Buying Stamped is intended to help address those issues. The company produced an app that centered on recommendations of restaurants, music and other entertainment by users. Its investors included Bain capital Ventures and Google Ventures, and its advisers included Mario Batali and the Instagram co-founder Kevin Systrom.

“Their experience building fun, useful, personalized mobile products aligns well with Yahoo!’s vision to create the best everyday mobile experience for our users,” Adam Cahan, a Yahoo senior vice president of emerging products and technology, wrote in a blog post on Thursday. “They will be a great asset as we expand Yahoo’s mobile efforts and build a world-class mobile development organization.”

For its part, Stamped’s team — composed in large part of former employees of Google, like Ms. Mayer — wrote in their own blog post: “As entrepreneurs, it’s never easy to walk away from something you built from the ground up, but the folks we met with at Yahoo! are simply top-notch and we’re thrilled to be joining them!”

Tragedy Strikes the Marvel Universe (Again)

It was inevitable, really. Death was going to strike Avengers vs. X-Men sooner or later, and so here we are. We won't spoil it here, but head over to our big interview with Brian Bendis if you want to get the scoop on the events of AvX #11. If you want to know if it's any good, well then keep on truckin'.

Also this week: the Bat-family gets a whole bunch of issue zeroes, the Rocketeer continues to amaze, and Uncanny X-Force continues to depress. What a week.

Written by Gail Simone | Art by Ed Benes

"Right off the bat (heh) I can say that Batgirl #0 is chock full of fan-service moments, but I’m pleased to say that it’s not at the expense of the story. You’ll see Dick Grayson as Robin, references to Killing Joke, and even some delicious creeper moments for James Jr., but Gail Simone never once loses site of Babs and her motivations for becoming Batgirl in the first place. She creates a refreshing scenario in which we get to see her birth as a crime fighter, all the while lacing the issue with a strong thematic hook that culminates in one hell of a punchline." -Joey

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Scott Snyder | Art by Greg Capullo

"Batman #0 is kind of a strange beast. It seems to serve as a precursor to the upcoming Death of the Family in that it explores the old Red Hood and his gang – where Scott Snyder suggests that this is indeed a pre-chemical bath Joker -- but it ends with a disappointing 'to be continued in 2013' without any resolution. To that end, on its own, Batman #0 doesn’t really feel like a complete story, instead just snippets of some great character moments for Bruce Wayne, Alfred, and Jim Gordon. There’s a lot of interesting stuff in here, but I suspect this issue will read better once the full context is known." -Joey

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Peter Tomasi | Art by Patrick Gleason

"Before we begin, let me just say that if you’re focused on figuring out how Damian could be 10 when Batman’s only been operating for 5-6 years, then stop. It doesn’t matter. What does matter is that Batman and Robin #0 is an endearing look at young Damian’s early days under the tutelage of his mother, leading directly into the events of Grant Morrison’s Batman and Son. It’s not exactly a fresh start for new readers, but longtime fans that hold Morrison’s work close to their heart will get goosebumps hitting this issue’s final page to relive one his run’s best moments." -Joey

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Brian Azzarello | Art by J.G. Jones

"For better or worse, Brain Azzarello seems less interested in replicating the tone and feel of the original Watchmen series with his two Before Watchmen books. But while Before Watchmen: Comedian is less redundant than it might have been, it also isn't managing to provide a compelling narrative or a cohesive look at what makes this dark vigilante tick." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Paul Cornell | Art by Bernard Chang

"Demon Knights #0 is not technically a bad comic book. It's well written and nicely drawn. It boasts a nice flow, with some interesting scenes. Unfortunately, it is also completely and totally unnecessary. It jumps back in time, like most of these DC zero issues, and gives us a glimpse into a time before The Demon Knights story started. This means that the book is devoid of some of the series' best characters and lacks any kind of meaningful story. It feels like an editorial mandate, and that's probably because it no doubt was." -Benjamin

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Frankenstein, Agent of S.H.A.D.E. #0

Written by Matt Kindt | Art by Alberto Ponticelli

"Frankenstein is a series I enjoyed as the New 52 relaunch kicked off but eventually fell behind on. Luckily, Matt Kindt's approach to issue #0 is one that welcomes new and lapsed readers. This completely standalone tale focuses on the creation of Victor Frankenstein's monster and the early battles that shaped him into the sword-slinging hero he is today." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Peter Tomasi | Art by Fernando Pasarin

"'I’ve seen more blood and guts and severed heads in the DC Universe in the past year than I have in quite some time.' That’s what my editor Joey Esposito said in his retrospective on DC’s New 52, a sentiment that couldn’t be felt more in Green Lantern Corps and bears exceptional truth in this zero issue. But after the beheadings, impalings, and bisections, Peter J. Tomasi writes one hell of a Guy Gardner origin story." -Joshua

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Rob Liefeld | Art by Scott Clark

"This book could be made into a four-page short. It also happens to be approximately the same plot of this month’s Superboy #0. In all honesty, the most entertainment that I mined from this book was Rob Liefeld’s hilariously bad cover. For a good laugh, find a copy and check out Grifter’s left thumb, right triceps, right legs, and right hand. Just don’t buy it." -Poet

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Tom DeFalco | Art by Pete Woods

"Legion Lost #0 is a pretty standard origin story for the most interesting character in the title, supplying enough action and drama for the title to transition smoothly into its next issue. Timber Wolf receives a solid retelling of his backstory and motivation for his career as a vigilante/Legion member. In the end, Tom DeFalco’s story is enough to justify this issue’s existence, but it’s unlikely to be your favorite book this week." -Poet

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Howard Mackie | Art by Ian Churchill

"Ravagers #0 takes the more straightforward approach to the Zero Month concept, flashing back to Beast Boy and Terra's origins as prisoners in the N.O.W.H.E.R.E. program. Howard Mackie aims to reveal how their bond developed in the face of great hardship and suffering. It's a nice idea, but the issue fails to offer any sense of progression. The characters barely encounter each other before Terra is throwing herself in the line of fire to protect Garth. There should have been more focus on the duo and less on Harvest and his minions explaining the nature of Garth and Tara's powers. Generally, Mackie's writing style is best suited to more family-friendly superhero fare. The pointless exposition and the overuse of technical jargon and scientific buzzwords do little to make this feel like a smart, science fiction-oriented superhero book." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Dan Abnett & Andy Lanning | Art by Ramon Bachs & Jesus Saiz

"It's a fair question to ask why Resurrection Man needs a #0 issue when the entire series has been devoted to slowly shedding light on Mitch Shelley's mysterious past and the nature of his powers. But with DC bringing the series to an end this month, Resurrection Man #0 is more a patch designed to tie up all the loose ends as quickly and neatly as possible. Unsurprisingly, that makes for an underwhelming finish to the series." -Jesse

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Adam Glass | Art by Fernando Dagnino

"Amanda Waller is certainly getting a lot of attention in the New 52. Though her old Team 7 is making its debut this week as well, Suicide Squad #0 picks up promptly after that team meets its end – something that apparently rubs The Wall the wrong way. While we presumably have quite a while to see the events referenced play out, writer Adam Glass makes it clear that Team 7 didn’t exactly leave Waller in a good place. For its length, Glass does a fair job of establishing the setting of this issue and the relationship of Waller and new character Duren. The book is brisk, but uses careful dialogue to allot for space constraints. However, as solid as the setup might be, the conclusion is lacking." -Joey

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Tom DeFalco | Art by RB Silva & Rob Lean

"Fans of exposition and recapitulation get ready. This book is chock full of it. If you’ve followed the series, you will learn next to nothing. Superboy #0 is a filler issue if ever there was one. Yes, Tom DeFalco’s script does add a bit of backstory, strange as it is. Sadly, the greater part of the book is a rehash of the first few issues of the series. Worse, there is an epic, grating voiceover/monologue by Harvest that lasts almost the entire issue. It does explain how Harvest fits into the whole convoluted scheme, but it fails to register as interesting." -Poet

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

Written by Justin Jordan | Art by Jesus Merino

"The original Team 7 series is a book I have fond memories of. It's probably not quite as good as I remember it, but it was a cool little series that explored the nasty roots of the Wildstorm Universe. It showed that everything was connected and that many of the characters had darker, more violent pasts than we had previously imagined. The new Team 7 book is nothing like that. It's generic, sluggish, and boring. It really shares only one thing with the original book and that's the title." -Benjamin

Click to read the entire review!

Final Score:

DealBook Column: Taking a Risk, and Hoping That Lightning Strikes Twice

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg NewsSean Parker, 32, was a co-founder of Napster.

Sean Parker, the 32-year-old billionaire and former president of Facebook — played by Justin Timberlake in “The Social Network” — was sitting on the top floor of his town house in the West Village of Manhattan last month, lamenting that too few entrepreneurs continue taking big risks after their first great success.

“Every good entrepreneur I know ends up in the wasteland of being a venture capitalist. It’s really frustrating,” he said.

Mr. Parker was sitting, or more accurately, slouching, on a couch next to his best friend and business partner, Shawn Fanning. Together, they founded Napster in 1999, the online music service that upended the entire industry before closing and filing for bankruptcy after losing a court case over piracy.

“How can you as an entrepreneur that’s had success, has a reputation, ever build the courage to go and do something again?” he asked, almost rhetorically. “Most entrepreneurs don’t remain entrepreneurs. It’s just too psychologically draining to have to constantly start over.”

More than a decade later, however, Sean and Shawn are at it again. The two recently started a video chat service called Airtime. (Think Skype, mixed with Facebook and a twist of Chatroulette.)

Mr. Parker and Mr. Fanning are the exceptions to the successful-entrepreneurs-still-working theory. Sure, there are a handful of serial entrepreneurs out there in Silicon Valley: Jack Dorsey started Twitter and Square, for example, and Elon Musk, who was behind PayPal, now runs SpaceX and Tesla.

But the career trajectory of many tremendously successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley often looks like a rocket ship that stops in midair. Less charitably, Mr. Parker suggests some could be called one-hit wonders.

“The list of people who have started from scratch over and over and succeeded systematically over a long period of time is incredibly short,” he said. “The only person I can think of off the cuff is Jobs who had Apple, Next, Pixar, continued doing Pixar and Next and then Apple again, which is really a different company.”

He said that the tendency of great entrepreneurs was either to become merely an operator of one company or, like Sumner Redstone, move into an investor-ownership role.

The Silicon Valley version becomes a venture capitalist. For example, Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal, has gone on to be a successful venture capitalist through his firm Founders Fund, investing in other companies’ businesses, like Facebook and Spotify. But Mr. Thiel hasn’t endeavored to start a new company himself. (He did start a hedge fund, but that’s still investing.) He happens to be in business with Mr. Parker, who is a partner in the fund, which also invested in his Airtime.

Marc Andreessen, a longtime star of Silicon Valley, co-founded Netscape in 1994. He started two companies after that: Loudcloud and Ning. Both had modest success, but neither was comparable to Netscape. Mr. Andreessen became one of those venture capitalists Mr. Parker dreads, but with an extremely successful track record of having invested in some of the most promising technology companies, including Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Zynga, Pinterest and Instagram (which was sold this year to Facebook for $1 billion).

Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Andreessen said of Mr. Parker’s theory: “I sort of agree with him.” In an interview, he said many “former entrepreneurs crossed over to be V.C.’s and it hasn’t worked out well.” He added, “You don’t want to be Michael Jordan playing baseball.”

Mr. Andreessen said he differentiated his decision to pursue investing from that of other entrepreneurs-turned-investors, because he approached it as an entrepreneurial effort to “rethink the model of venture capital.” He has sought to reimagine the way a venture capital firm works from top to bottom, and so far, it appears to working quite spectacularly.

Still, to Mr. Parker, most entrepreneurs who seek out investments do so as “a total cop-out.” He explained his thinking: “You have a whole portfolio, you only focus on your successes, you ignore your failures and you get to continue looking like a player, but you’re ultimately not in control of anything.”

He continued: “Everything is probabilistic, nothing is deterministic, so you never have that satisfaction of knowing that you’re in control of an outcome. So you spend all of your time managing your reputation, managing your relationships and you spend almost no time thinking creatively or doing the things that an entrepreneur is good at doing.”

If it sounds as if Mr. Parker is talking only about others, he’s not. He’s also talking about himself.

After stepping down from Facebook in 2005, he joined Mr. Thiel’s Founders Fund and for several years worked on making investments, including in Spotify and Votizen.

He also worked on Causes, a site to raise money and awareness for issues and nonprofits. That venture only muddled along, and he said he did not commit to it wholeheartedly enough.

He said the biggest challenge for any new start-up by a previously successful entrepreneur was focusing too much “on downside protection, which is just assuming failure from the outset.” Being worried about failure and its effect on one’s reputation, he said, is “very dangerous.”

He said he was reluctant to start a new company like Airtime until just recently.

“The expectation thing definitely weighs on me. There’s a sort of fear of launching something and failing,” he said. “I had to decide I am going to try to go the road less traveled and just be an entrepreneur that’s willing to go back and start things from scratch.”

DealBook Column: Taking a Risk, and Hoping That Lightning Strikes Twice

Simon Dawson/Bloomberg NewsSean Parker, 32, was a co-founder of Napster.

Sean Parker, the 32-year-old billionaire and former president of Facebook — played by Justin Timberlake in “The Social Network” — was sitting on the top floor of his town house in the West Village of Manhattan last month, lamenting that too few entrepreneurs continue taking big risks after their first great success.

“Every good entrepreneur I know ends up in the wasteland of being a venture capitalist. It’s really frustrating,” he said.

Mr. Parker was sitting, or more accurately, slouching, on a couch next to his best friend and business partner, Shawn Fanning. Together, they founded Napster in 1999, the online music service that upended the entire industry before closing and filing for bankruptcy after losing a court case over piracy.

“How can you as an entrepreneur that’s had success, has a reputation, ever build the courage to go and do something again?” he asked, almost rhetorically. “Most entrepreneurs don’t remain entrepreneurs. It’s just too psychologically draining to have to constantly start over.”

More than a decade later, however, Sean and Shawn are at it again. The two recently started a video chat service called Airtime. (Think Skype, mixed with Facebook and a twist of Chatroulette.)

Mr. Parker and Mr. Fanning are the exceptions to the successful-entrepreneurs-still-working theory. Sure, there are a handful of serial entrepreneurs out there in Silicon Valley: Jack Dorsey started Twitter and Square, for example, and Elon Musk, who was behind PayPal, now runs SpaceX and Tesla.

But the career trajectory of many tremendously successful entrepreneurs in Silicon Valley often looks like a rocket ship that stops in midair. Less charitably, Mr. Parker suggests some could be called one-hit wonders.

“The list of people who have started from scratch over and over and succeeded systematically over a long period of time is incredibly short,” he said. “The only person I can think of off the cuff is Jobs who had Apple, Next, Pixar, continued doing Pixar and Next and then Apple again, which is really a different company.”

He said that the tendency of great entrepreneurs was either to become merely an operator of one company or, like Sumner Redstone, move into an investor-ownership role.

The Silicon Valley version becomes a venture capitalist. For example, Peter Thiel, who co-founded PayPal, has gone on to be a successful venture capitalist through his firm Founders Fund, investing in other companies’ businesses, like Facebook and Spotify. But Mr. Thiel hasn’t endeavored to start a new company himself. (He did start a hedge fund, but that’s still investing.) He happens to be in business with Mr. Parker, who is a partner in the fund, which also invested in his Airtime.

Marc Andreessen, a longtime star of Silicon Valley, co-founded Netscape in 1994. He started two companies after that: Loudcloud and Ning. Both had modest success, but neither was comparable to Netscape. Mr. Andreessen became one of those venture capitalists Mr. Parker dreads, but with an extremely successful track record of having invested in some of the most promising technology companies, including Facebook, Groupon, Twitter, Zynga, Pinterest and Instagram (which was sold this year to Facebook for $1 billion).

Perhaps surprisingly, Mr. Andreessen said of Mr. Parker’s theory: “I sort of agree with him.” In an interview, he said many “former entrepreneurs crossed over to be V.C.’s and it hasn’t worked out well.” He added, “You don’t want to be Michael Jordan playing baseball.”

Mr. Andreessen said he differentiated his decision to pursue investing from that of other entrepreneurs-turned-investors, because he approached it as an entrepreneurial effort to “rethink the model of venture capital.” He has sought to reimagine the way a venture capital firm works from top to bottom, and so far, it appears to working quite spectacularly.

Still, to Mr. Parker, most entrepreneurs who seek out investments do so as “a total cop-out.” He explained his thinking: “You have a whole portfolio, you only focus on your successes, you ignore your failures and you get to continue looking like a player, but you’re ultimately not in control of anything.”

He continued: “Everything is probabilistic, nothing is deterministic, so you never have that satisfaction of knowing that you’re in control of an outcome. So you spend all of your time managing your reputation, managing your relationships and you spend almost no time thinking creatively or doing the things that an entrepreneur is good at doing.”

If it sounds as if Mr. Parker is talking only about others, he’s not. He’s also talking about himself.

After stepping down from Facebook in 2005, he joined Mr. Thiel’s Founders Fund and for several years worked on making investments, including in Spotify and Votizen.

He also worked on Causes, a site to raise money and awareness for issues and nonprofits. That venture only muddled along, and he said he did not commit to it wholeheartedly enough.

He said the biggest challenge for any new start-up by a previously successful entrepreneur was focusing too much “on downside protection, which is just assuming failure from the outset.” Being worried about failure and its effect on one’s reputation, he said, is “very dangerous.”

He said he was reluctant to start a new company like Airtime until just recently.

“The expectation thing definitely weighs on me. There’s a sort of fear of launching something and failing,” he said. “I had to decide I am going to try to go the road less traveled and just be an entrepreneur that’s willing to go back and start things from scratch.”