Successful mega-investor Dave McClure is all about quantity over quality, and he's not ashamed: his fund is called 500 Startups, after all. But if you want to be part of this moneyed crowd, you'll have to get past the worst email wall I've ever seen.

I first butted up against this 400 word monument to McClure's precious time when I wanted to get his thoughts regarding a naughty naked protégé. I'd never expect an immediate email reply, but I sure wasn't expecting this, either:

hi there — i get a *lot* of email. guessing you do too. this is one of those annoying auto-replies that makes me seem pretentious & full of crap (likely accurate), however i try to make it interesting for folks since i'm better at creative writing than answering emails.

for the next few days, i'll be traveling in Japan, and then in NYC on Fri 2/15 for our 500 Startups Demo Day so apologies if i miss your email. btw, you can watch our demo days live at

and also follow our tweetstream at http://twitter.com/500startups

full disclosure: hope you won't be bummed when i confess there's probably ~20% chance i'll read your email, and maybe only ~5% chance i'll respond. yeah, it's that bad.

look: it's not like you're not all kinds of sexy & awesome & amazing, but if i spent all my time answering email, i'd never get any other shit done. and since i'm planning on changing the world, i really need to make sure i GET SHIT DONE.

so i'll do my best to read & maybe respond to email, but if it's really important you may need to reach me through other channels, and it's also possible that it just doesn't happen at all (which might be my loss).

if it's URGENT, and/or you are a 500 Startups investor, founder, mentor or partner, or if we are in the middle of a deal, then PLEASE give me a call or text if you have my phone #. you can also put a respond by date in the subject line so i have a better chance of catching it. or read below for more info on how to get in touch.

OR YOU CAN SEND ME AN ALL-CAPS EMAIL AND I MIGHT READ THAT.

or i might not.

if you'd like, you may be able to reach other members of the 500 team or me faster by filling out this form:
http://awayfind.com/500startups

in the meantime, if you want to follow extremely interesting updates about me brushing my teeth & other crap, go here:
http://facebook.com/davemcclure
http://twitter.com/davemcclure

for completely unproductive & NSFW images & videos, go here:
http://9GAG.com/

if you've read this far, you are very dedicated. i encourage you to spend less time reading my auto responder, and more time reading a good book or playing Angry Birds.

peace out.

A twenty-percent chance he'll read your email, and only a 5-percent that he'll reply to it! Those are not good odds—the guy is tossing out 75-percent of the emails he ever bothers reading. Luckily my inquiry involved a business associate with his dick out on Facebook, so I made the cut. As did, somehow, the people behind Manpacks, "a web-based service for the delivery of men’s essentials, specializing in underwear" that's under McClure's wing. For all the rest of you looking for money, you'll have to beat that, somehow—because Dave McClure is probably too busy "GETTING SHIT DONE" to reply.

But feel free to try your luck anyway: Dave@500startups.com. Peace out.

To contact the author of this post, write to biddle@gawker.com