The difference between Silicon Valley and other locales trying to reproduce it has generally not been money. The difference has been <i>smart</i> money. The people who hold the purse strings (founder&#x2F;CEOs, angels, early-stage investors) have been savvy about what it takes to build and scale a startup.<p>The problem is that there&#x27;s always a limited money of smart money available to deploy at any given time.<p>The question is then, how do you structure a deal to give unsophisticated investors (aka dumb money) returns, which they want, without giving them control, which would ruin the party.<p>Zuckerberg actually led the way here in 2009 when he got Russian billionaire Yuri Milner to invest $200M in Facebook at a $10B valuation. Everyone thought Milner was crazy then. But he went laughing all the way to the bank.<p>This is another step in that direction, which deserves our applause.