

Venture Capitalists Get Paid Well to Lose Money - muzz
http://blogs.hbr.org/2014/08/venture-capitalists-get-paid-well-to-lose-money/

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georgeecollins
In a healthy economy there is a need for bad investments. Otherwise capital
would simply accumulate. Many VCs perform a service by making bad investments
seem reasonable and attractive to foolish institutional investors. It isn't
that easy to do. You need a plausible story about how you could generate a
huge return. You need to convince people that the investment is sensible. This
article makes it sound like anyone could do it, but actually I am sure it is
very hard.

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YetAnotherBozo
I like the way you think, if you're being facetious that is. But yes, without
bad investments moving money from the 1% to the bourgeoisie and the petite-
bourgeoisie, then it just stays trapped up there, which makes politicians turn
into street-walking whores - over-eager to sell out the populace. Venture
capital is the new communism. They're the new "takers" in our economic
society, or perhaps the new "Robin Hoods."

And I applaud their efforts. It's not easy turning bull into gold. And there's
a big difference between regular bull (the news, everything you see on all
media, advertising, your co-workers' worthless opinions) and turn it into
_convincing_ bull.

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mathattack
This is a scathing article. An open question... Is seems like the public
market is not participating in the run-ups of many companies. For example,
Facebook grew on private money, not public. Are these run-ups just too small
to move the industry needle? Are public markets benefiting or hurting by not
being involved in as many IPOs?

