The original purpose of a board of directors was to manage the company at a strategic level. To do the job properly takes time and effort. Unfortunately, there is no limit to how many boards on which one can sit, and the quality of corporate governance at the board level has degraded accordingly. Allowing people to sit on multiple boards also breeds group think, conflicts of interest and back-channels for insider information. Interlocking boards are another way our economic system is gamed to favor the wealthy. We should restrict membership to a single board, leading to a greater diversity of qualified people in the boardroom.
This isn't about Boards of Directors so much as about how VCs should act when they act as advisers. And the article doesn't make the VC sound like an adviser as much as a business partner. The problem here is the adviser isn't a founding member of the company, even though the VC wants to be one. And when you want to go a different direction, your adviser can all too easily become a back-seat driver.<p>A VC is a person with time and money but no ideas. If they had ideas, why wouldn't they make those ideas into real products?