It&'s official: Elevation Partners has announced the resignation of Marc Bodnick from the high-profile private-equity firm, just a couple days after VentureBeat first reported his impending departure.
While Bodnick hasn&'t commented on his plans, he&'s widely understood to be joining Quora, a highly valued question-and-answer startup founded by former Facebook employees, in an unspecified role.
Elevation cofounder Roger McNamee made the following statement:
&''Marc has made the decision to leave Elevation to pursue new opportunities. Over the years, Marc has made many contributions to the firm, and he leaves behind a healthy portfolio from Elevationa4‚¬a4„s first fund. We wish Marc continued success in the future.&''
Let&'s parse that, shall we
From what we&'ve gathered, Bodnick felt frustrated that there wasn&'t much work for him at Elevation. Elevation sought permission last year from its investors to extend the fund&'s investment period, during which it could make new bets on companies. It&'s now permitted only follow-on investments in its current portfolio. It has talked about raising a new fund, but it hasn&'t yet. And it&'s not clear whether investors will want to back Elevation without Bodnick on board.
So Elevation is now, in essence, winding down its first $1.9 billion fund, which had duds in its investments in Forbes Media and Palm, the smartphone maker, an as-yet unproven bet on Yelp, the local-reviews site, and a major win &8212' at least on paper &8212' in Facebook, whose shares have more than tripled in value since Elevation cobbled together a stake in the social network.
That&'s what Bodnick &''leaves behind,&'' in McNamee&'s telling words.
It appears that Bodnick wanted to get more involved with Quora, while maintaining a role with Elevation &8212' and a lucrative payout from management fees and, potentially, its positions in Facebook and Yelp.
So it&'s interesting that McNamee cited Bodnick&'s &''many contributions&'' &8212' since, according to Dan Lyons in the Daily Beast, McNamee and Bodnick feuded over exactly how much Bodnick deserved from the fund.
It&'s worth noting that McNamee has several interests outside Elevation, including serving as executive chairman of a startup, Wordnik, and playing guitar in a band, Moonalice, which toured for 87 days in 2010.
And Elevation&'s most famous partner, Bono, is the lead singer of U2.
If Bono and McNamee can manage $1.9 billion and handle their musical careers, why couldn&'t Bodnick help Quora explore some deeper questions, like how the startup is going to justify its $87 million valuation
It&'s a moot point: With Elevation announcing Bodnick&'s resignation, his career there&'s clearly done. The only question left to answer: Will Bodnick get what he thinks he&'s owed
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Companies: Elevation Partners, quora, Wordnik
People: Bono, Marc Bodnick, Roger Mcnamee
Companies: Elevation Partners, quora, Wordnik
People: Bono, Marc Bodnick, Roger Mcnamee
Owen Thomas is the executive editor of VentureBeat.
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