Benchmark Capital is having a good year. The firm has exited Good Technology, TellMe and Business.com at over $400 million each. While the amount invested into the first two was more than $100 million, that's an impressive trio of exits in a few months. Not surprisingly, Benchmark general partner Bill Gurley said at the AlwaysOn Stanford Summit last week that, "liquidity is the best we’ve seen in years."

He suggested that the IPO market appears to be wide open but that fewer companies than normal are pursuing that path because there aren't enough executives that have a desire to be public company CEOs. He added that Benchmark's portfolio companies usually plan out an IPO at least 15 months prior to the target date.

Gurley said that private equity firms have "come to the table at a few recent auction processes but they’re always fallen away as the weeks go on." Overall, he said that enthusiasm is very high right now but that, "people are building burn rates like they haven’t since the 1990s and I think that’s a really bad idea."

For more on Benchmark Capital's Bill Gurley, see:
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Ben Yoskovitz
Dyland Tweney

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