The question, then, is how many successful startups got their foot in the door because they knew an influential investor socially, even though they couldn&#x27;t convince investors of their science?<p>Investing in startups is risky <i>because</i> you can&#x27;t know all the details. There are plenty of cases where an investor doesn&#x27;t know for themselves if a technology works, but believes in the founders anyway. In some cases, even the founders don&#x27;t know yet, but their pitch is more confident than they really are. This is fine because, at least some of the time, the technology does indeed end up working.<p>If Theranos had gone well, we would be celebrating how Silicon Valley looks for disruptors and is willing to invest in risky, unproven technologies by smart kids who know better than to waste their life getting a Ph.D., no? It&#x27;s inconsistent to be willing to both praise and criticize VCs for taking risks on technologies they don&#x27;t understand. If Tim Draper shouldn&#x27;t have done that for Theranos, other VCs shouldn&#x27;t be doing it for anyone else. And if it&#x27;s good for VCs to do it in general, it was good for Tim Draper to take this risk.