Venture capital is a hell of a drug
My own experience is that the big risk that I did not account for, as a founder without venture backing, is that you become ramen profitable and just sit there for a decade.<p>This is hugely destructive for the founder in question. If you don&#x27;t have vc baking and you don&#x27;t sell to a big name? Looking for a job after running a business with a gross of a few hundred thousand a year is just not the same as looking for a job after working for one of the big valley companies.  I mean I exaggerate and say that employers treat me like I was unemployed, and it is not that bad, but compared to working for large companies with reputations for hiring good people, running an unfunded, ramen profitable company looks pretty bad on your resume.<p>I would argue that vc mitigates a lot of these risks. First, you have a name, a reputation to put on your reputation.  Second, the bit about get big or get dead? In many cases, that is as good for the founder as for the vc.  You are way less likely to end up starting your career over when the thing fails, both because of the reputation factor and because either you got big (which is good for the career even if the company gets dead before you can cash out) or you got dead fairly quickly, and have less time to explain away.