I was confused about some of the jargon in Paul Graham's "The future is no fixed amount, no fixed closing date, and no lead" quote so I looked them up best I could:<p>no lead - A lead investor is basically someone who commits, and says "we're in" at the start of the round. They commit organizational and negotiating resources. They also typically take a board seat. See <a href="http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2007/10/the-lead-invest.html" rel="nofollow">http://www.avc.com/a_vc/2007/10/the-lead-invest.html</a><p>mass syndication - Instead of having a lead investor and a big closing event, you drum up interest from lots of parties who commit based on the understand that other investors are also buying in with the same terms. See <a href="http://blog.rafaelcorrales.com/2010/05/mass-syndication-is-party-round.html" rel="nofollow">http://blog.rafaelcorrales.com/2010/05/mass-syndication-is-p...</a><p>no fixed amounts - This seems to mean that a valuation is set, but the actual amount of money invested is not. I imagine it's sort of like a line of credit, but the startup takes as little as they need. Does anyone else know more details about this?<p>no closing - I'm reaching here a little, but I think what's implied here is that instead of getting everyone to commit to one big agreement, which is signed at once with great fanfare and large checked being signed, the startup just gets interested parties to sign on one at a time, and they go until they have sufficient funding. This is obviously more of a leap of faith for investors, so you have to set your valuation below market. See <a href="http://venturehacks.com/articles/no-lead" rel="nofollow">http://venturehacks.com/articles/no-lead</a><p>Anyone else have details on what these things mean? I'm just clicking around reading blog entries.