A Great American Experience

A Great American Experience

President Obama signed into law today a bill called the JOBS Act.  I haven’t read the full text of the law, but based on abstracts, my opinion of the JOBS Act is that it’s great for the startup community, but even greater for growth companies. I am less familiar with the Crowdsourcing components of the bill, but certainly that will make it easier for pure startups to attract micro capital.

The Sarbanes-Oxley reforms that make it easier and less costly to go through an IPO and be a public company will really enable growth companies like Return Path and many others in the Internet industry to go public a little earlier and with less difficulty. Tapping the public markets like that will enable the thriving Internet sector, which is one of the few truly high-growth segments of the economy, to grow even faster and create even more jobs.

Even better — George, Jack, and I were invited to attend the bill signing ceremony and speech in the Rose Garden at the White House!  Below are three pictures, one of the signing, one of the three of us, and one of me and Scott Dorsey, our friend and CEO of Exact Target, who we ran into there.

It was a great experience for the three of us overall.  Seeing the White House, the President, and a positive product of the legislative process up close and personal was great.  Hearing the President’s speech, which was a complete pep talk about the virtues of entrepreneurship and small businesses as the growth engines of the economy, was very inspirational.  And overall, the whole thing made all three of us so proud of everything that all 300+ of us, and our very strategic and patient investors and Board members, have accomplished at Return Path these past dozen years.  We ARE part of the global growth story.  And we should all be excited about that!