There’s no shortage of Hollywood films portraying businesspeople as soulless villains – and lately, even documentaries have gotten in on the feeding frenzy. During a decade that culminated in one of the worst financial crises in recent history, movies like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room, The Corporation, and Inside Job have captivated audiences, and left them considerably more cynical than starry-eyed.
Those films have their place, says Molly Davis, co-executive producer of Something Ventured: Risk, Reward and the Original Venture Capitalists. But they definitely don’t paint a complete picture.
“We believe that our film is a great reminder of what is so special about our culture of entrepreneurship and innovation in the United States, and we don’t want to lose sight of what has worked for us for so long,” said Davis. “Movies like The Corporation, Enron, and most recently Inside Job, those are great movies, but they really paint a scary picture of what has happened in business. Those are the things we should never do again, and we think that this movie is the other side of the coin.”
Something Ventured, which will be given a special screening on March 29 at Sundance Cinemas in Madison (view trailer), tells the story of a small group of risk-takers who went on to make a monumental difference, not just in the business world but in the lives of pretty much everyone on the planet.
Those visionaries helped turn Silicon Valley into what it is today, and in the process, say the filmmakers, “ignited the industry known as venture capital.”
The players in the film include well-known companies such as Apple, Intel, Genentech, Cisco, and Atari, while the venture capitalists and entrepreneurs include visionaries like Don Valentine, Arthur Rock, Jim Gaither, Reid Dennis, Gordon Moore, Nolan Bushnell, and Sandy Lerner.
Indeed, one of the entrepreneurs featured in the film will be familiar to Madisonians. John Morgridge, a UW graduate and philanthropist whose name graces the Morgridge Institute for Research at the Wisconsin Institutes for Discovery, was an early Cisco CEO whom many credit with taking the company to the next level. According to Davis, his storyline is “probably the most controversial in the movie.”
But while films like Inside Job and Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room profile the most pernicious and dysfunctional – and, needless to say, the greediest – players in the business world, Something Ventured has captured audiences and acclaim by focusing on the entrepreneurial white hats. The movie was an official selection of both the San Francisco International Film Festival and the Seattle International Film Festival, and according to Davis, it has generally been a hit with audiences.
“I don’t think we expected that it would be quite as mainstream as it ended up being,” said Davis. “Early on our goals were more around capturing this history, sharing it with young people in an educational setting as well as with people interested in business, but it actually has turned out to be more appealing than we ever hoped in wider circles.”
That may have something to do with the inspiring story it tells. Whether movies focus on ordinary people bucking the system or entrepreneurs going against all odds to accomplish extraordinary things, audiences always love an underdog tale, and Something Ventured is no exception.
“I think it’s an experience of the American dream unfolding in front of our eyes,” said Davis. “We all love a good story about someone going after something they’re really passionate about and succeeding. The entrepreneurs in this film in particular are passionate and driven people who are unstoppable, and it’s exciting to watch that. I think everyone has ideas within them, whether it’s about starting a company or making a movie or whatever it is they want to do – we’ve all got those drives inside of us. So people enjoy watching others pursuing those dreams because it makes them want to do that themselves.”
Calling all angels
The March 29 screening is sponsored by the Wisconsin Angel Network and the Wisconsin Technology Council, and it couldn’t come at a better time if you care about the future of early-stage investing in Wisconsin.
A recent report by the Wisconsin Angel Network noted that while Wisconsin angel investing rose 20% in 2011, venture financing was actually down. The report found that total venture capital investments were at $91.7 million, which was down 30% (though still above the five-year average).
If the state has any hopes of writing its own Silicon Valley-type success story, say advocates of venture capital financing, it will need to be firing on all cylinders when it comes to its early-stage funding. Currently, Wisconsin attracts just .25% of all venture capital investment in the country.
According to Zach Brandon, director of the Wisconsin Angel Network, Something Ventured is a movie that could help point businesspeople in the right direction when it comes to encouraging entrepreneurial ecosystems capable of growing an Apple or an Intel.
“We’ve actually been the champions of good public policy that drives more investment, and we continue to push ourselves in that area and have done a great job in the state of building an infrastructure for angel investing,” said Brandon. “We’ve gone from a handful of angel groups in this state in 2004 to over two dozen in the state today, and we’re seeing record numbers when it comes to the amount of angel investing that’s being done, but we’re really struggling in drawing venture capital, which is the second part of the continuum. … [Something Ventured] is the story of what can happen when a state has the right climate for investing and entrepreneurship and is able to execute on a strategy.”
For her part, Davis says the movie offers plenty of inspiration for potential entrepreneurs, as well as a welcome antidote for those who might tend to feel defeated by films like Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room.
“You walk out of that movie and you’re just completely deflated,” said Davis. “With Inside Job, you will as well, you feel so helpless. And [Something Ventured], hopefully young people especially will watch it and say, ‘you know what, I see myself in those people. I’m going to consider this for me.’”
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