Some funds founded by Nathan Myhrvold, which raised ~$3B to invest mostly in patents, had negative IRR of 15% to 24% in last decade; many key people have left
Forbes Staff Following the money trail — The other fund, Invention Development Fund, has posted an IRR of -24.7%. Tweets: @mgsiegler , @deaneckles , @wilbanks , @fredbenenson , and @kennwhite Tweets: M.G. Siegler / @mgsiegler : Karma's IRR shoots to 100%... http://twitter.com/... Dean Eckles / @deaneckles : Maybe he can go back to writing exorbitantly priced cookbooks? Oh and being a patent troll. http://twitter.com/... John Wilbanks / @wilbanks : the fact that investors in these funds are losing their shirts makes me happy in a deeply petty and satisfying way http://twitter.com/... @fredbenenson : Surprise! It turns out hoarding patents and trying to extort people for licensining fees is a stupidly unprofitable idea for a hedge fund: http://www.forbes.com/... Kenn White / @kennwhite : This is halfway into two 20 year funds, after an initial raise of $3B pic.twitter.com/938lU0PVSU