It&#x27;s a lottery, you only need one. One facebook, one google, etc. Those successes bring in RoI not just of double digit percentages (the sort you&#x27;d expect from high-risk investments) but in multiples, orders of magnitude even. 10x, 100x returns sometimes. And when you hit those jackpots all of your other investments are now meaningless. The result is that VC becomes a game of searching for jackpots. Everyone wants a little bit of everything, and everyone wants to have their fingers in the things that look most interesting, that seem to have the chance to blow up. VCs also push the companies they invest in to grow fast and hit the point of finding out whether or not they&#x27;re a &quot;jackpot&quot; idea or not.<p>At the same time, investors have figured out innumerable ways to get paid out of companies that are obviously not going to make it and won&#x27;t ever hit a traditional liquidity event. They&#x27;ve gamed the system to an enormous degree but they also pump so much money into it that it&#x27;s hard to stand up to them.