(Spangler) The annual 10th annual Venture Capital and Private Equity Conference was officially moved to the Fleet Center yesterday, as conference organizers feared that its original location would be too small to hold all the egos.
“We’re expecting a record turnout this year,” said EC student Barrett Mitchell, a co-conference organizer. “This means we’re gonna have a large volume of pride and arrogance and hubris at the conference. The HBS facilities just aren’t big enough to handle it.”
After taking stock of all the local venues that possibly could hold so much self-importance and haughtiness, the executive board discovered that only the Fleet Center and CMGI field, the home of the New England Patriots, would fit the bill.
“We obviously had to go with the Fleet Center because of the weather,” Mitchell said. “But of course, each of the VCPE Conference’s eight executive board members still had to give their two cents.”
Kerry Percival, an EC student who attended the conference last year, believes the executive board made the right decision. “Hopefully with the Fleet Center, they’ll be able to avoid another Bernstein-Lakmanan incident. What an embarrassment.”
The legendary Bernstein-Lakmanan incident occurred on the first day of last year’s conference and resulted in the paramedics and the police being called to campus. According witnesses, Eric Bernstein, the head of Whitewater Parters, and Vishal Lakmanan, the founder of Georgia Atlantic Group, tried walking through the doors of Burden Auditorium at the exact same moment.
“Then their heads literally got stuck in the doorframe,” said a visibly-amused Percival. “Their heads are so big, they couldn’t fit ’em through the door. It took an hour to free them up.”
During that hour of incapacitation, Bernstein and Lakmanan took turns yelling at Gabriella Burns, a 2003 HBS graduate and then VCPE co-president. Things that were said included: “Do you know who I am?” and “You’re through in this business!” and “When I get back to my office, I’m gonna find some 23-year-old analyst who made a typo in a footnote and I’m gonna tear him a new asshole!”
Unfortunately for the conference attendees, Bernstein and Lakmanan were unable to participate in the informative panel discussion titled: “My crap doesn’t stink because I put my pants on two legs at a time.”
“Hopefully this year we can avoid all the nonsense from last,” said Mitchell as he updated the conference website. “We’ve got some big egos coming who’ve made billions investing in buyouts and startups.”
“If the Fleet Center proves too small and the market keeps going up, next year we’ll have to hold it in an open field. Or Yellowstone National Park.”
