Bad Notes on Venture Capital
Is there an entrepreneur willing to say "Yep, tried them, got bitten in the hindquarters", even anonymously?  I don't necessarily disbelieve here but it strikes me that VCs have the curious property of always giving fundraising advice which is in the interest of VCs.  I acknowledge that somewhere in this wide world there may actually be a VC motivated primarily by friends-and-family getting appropriate compensation for risky investments but that is not the way I will bet.<p>My understanding -- limited, in that I've been a party to two but from the other side of the table -- is that a major reason they became popular is because they take the fangs out of collusive behavior by investors.  The Valley had evolved a "Well, I'll invest if you get a lead" "Well, I'll lead if you close $X" system which froze out a lot of companies if the founders didn't have deep, pre-existing social networks.  "You want a lead!" sounds a lot like wistful nostalgia for this gatekeeping behavior.  I understand why a gatekeeper would see it that way.  I don't understand why the gated would.