Four months after joining Microsoft to develop products around syndication technologies, Niall Kennedy is leaving. In his parting post, he explained on his blog that the funding necessary to do what he was hired to do immediately dried up.

Therefore, he has decided to leave and launch a startup. He explains it this way:

It's easier to get funding outside Microsoft than inside at the moment, so I am stepping out and doing my own thing.

The danger that the increased flow of venture capital money presents to large companies isn't just the increased likelihood that one of these newly funded startups will eventually dent those companies' businesses. An added danger is that the venture capital money is luring some of those large companies' brightest minds away with the promise of startup success. That migration actually increases the likelihood that the small companies can eventually effect the larger companies' businesses.

Tags: microsoft, vc, venture capital