Venture capital used to be about placing small, diverse bets on a lot promising startups - everybody in the process was trying to make the world a better place
Since about 2018, VC game changed - now it's about brazenly placing massive bets on a small set of startups of increasingly questionable utility, using the funds and clout to ram their way through into monopoly positions. Not a speck of morality involved anymore - and nobody is even trying to pretend otherwise
Public image hasn't yet caught up with this reality
It feels like a bubble to me. When I see Matt Damon shilling crypto, it reminds me of pets.com Superbowl ads. I think reality will catch up sooner or later.
>everybody in the process was trying to make the world a better place
I think "everybody" here is a pretty substantial overstatement. Plenty of folks were just trying to make money, without much regard for whether it made the world better or worse.
It's irrelevant what the funding comes from or how you define it. VC, PE and Hedge funds all have fairly loose definitions. But, someone is funding it because it sure ain't coming from profits.
Technically, they agreed to pay $700M over 20 years for arena naming rights -- no idea what the deal actually looks like but if you flat-line it, they're "only" paying $35M/year. Which is still a ton of money but much more reasonable in terms of cash out the door for a startup.
I hope this doesn't mean we have to endure 20 years of this name on the nba court. With all this gambling (sports betting) sponsoring of the NBA and now these crypto sponsors, it really does look like the NBA has sold out (also new trikot sponsor deals). It's a shame how much they feast on hooking impressionable men on gambling. Actually, thinking about it, there should be more ads for f2p/mobile games, would fit perfectly in this portfolio. (sorry for this rant but it really disturbs me and I hope I'm not the only one)
You'll have to endure it if you believe that Crypto.com will exist 20 years from now. I'd bet even money they won't exist in 5 years and the court is renamed in ~3 years.
I mostly agree on the gambling front too - gambling was bad enough when you had to lure people to a casino but at least that gave them the excuse of "It's my form of entertainment, it's like going to a nightclub."
"The best minds of my generation are thinking about how to make people click ads" -- not any more! Now they're trying to find the shortest distance between users' wallets and their RSUs. On the plus side, they can use all of the targeting and persuasion techniques that have been used to make TikTok/Instagram so addictive on directly separating users from their money. Forget selling a product!
Yeah, seeing huge marketing spend by an organisation that's not a massive brand with deep pockets always makes me wonder where the money is coming from
They're also notable lately for getting the naming rights to the (former) Staples Center.
> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crypto.com_Arena