This story from the San Francisco Chronicle illustrates once again that you can raise too much money.
A year ago, Mark McDade, chief executive officer of PDL BioPharma in Fremont, was planning the move of his biotechnology company to a glamorous new office complex in Redwood City. PDL's operations were growing as it sought to expand its line of acute-care drugs, and it needed bigger quarters.Now McDade, a Harvard MBA, is fending off critics who blast his real estate deal as just one example of his extravagant spending.
Too much funding in a new business can lead to over spending on overhead, wasteful spending on non-productive expenses, and even taking your eye off of what it takes to build a business. A hungry entrepreneur will out perform a fat and lazy one any day.
Given the choice of a start-up with much more money than they really need and a start-up that is slightly underfunded, I would pick the latter every time.
(Thanks to Dr. Jim Stefansic for passing this along).
