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VC isn't VC anymore

anildash.com

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Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#181

Post by carlosjobim »

palata wrote: post #160
carlosjobim wrote: post #137

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Everything which is not your salary is completely speculative, and should be valued at near-zero. That you wanted to gamble on that was your own decision and your own fault. You have nobody to blame but yourself. If you had gotten rich from the stocks you wouldn't have complained here.

> If you had gotten rich from the stocks you wouldn't have complained here. Duh. > That you wanted to gamble on that What makes you think I gambled at all?

You said that you worked for a low salary at startups and feel scammed because of that.

You could have worked somewhere else instead for a higher salary if you weren't gambling.

Or if nobody would have hired you for a higher salary somewhere else, then maybe your salary at the startups wasn't so low after all?

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#182

Post by Karrot_Kream »

unknownfuture wrote: post #180
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #177

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's no strong consensus, but there's weak consensus that post-GFC regulation is a factor behind but is not causal in any way, for the decrease in IPOs. Here's a paper [1] (well it's the paper author discussing his paywalled paper lol) exploring SOX regulations and their effects on IPOs. There's other papers and I think a good survey will help you on this topic. I don't think there's consensus on regulations being…

I think you're being oversensitive or just looking for a fight if you detect even a hint of "culture war talking points" in my comment.

It's hard for me to read '"Regulations bad" is a pretty common platitude around here but you've stated your main thesis, here, without a hint of support to back it.' as anything more than that.

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#183

Post by unknownfuture »

Karrot_Kream wrote: post #182
unknownfuture wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think you're being oversensitive or just looking for a fight if you detect even a hint of "culture war talking points" in my comment.

It's hard for me to read '"Regulations bad" is a pretty common platitude around here but you've stated your main thesis, here, without a hint of support to back it.' as anything more than that.

It's an observation about prevailing libertarian values in the HN community that tend to attract upvotes while going unchallenged.

If you consider that part of a "culture war", then it seems that term has lost all meaning. Might as well just accuse me of being "woke" and get it over with.

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#184

Post by Karrot_Kream »

unknownfuture wrote: post #183
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's hard for me to read '"Regulations bad" is a pretty common platitude around here but you've stated your main thesis, here, without a hint of support to back it.' as anything more than that.

It's an observation about prevailing libertarian values in the HN community that tend to attract upvotes while going unchallenged. If you consider that part of a "culture war", then it seems that term has lost all meaning. Might as well just accuse me of being "woke" and get it over with.

I think this forum has a lot of values and don't think it's been libertarian in outlook in a long time based on what gets upvoted here so appealing to that is a bit silly but anyway I don't think this is a fruitful conversation so have a good day.

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#185

Post by random3 »

agfs wrote: post #42
random3 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

So A16Z is the largest spender on politics, but Anil Dash's "momma is.." https://techcrunch.com/2026/08/31/a-group-funded-by-andreess... https://www.nytimes.com/2026/05/13/technology/andreessen-hor...

Do you think people who suspect tolerated opposition would not also criticize A16Z? How about investigating controlled opposition financed by A16Z or others?

I don't understand what you're saying. Can you clarify your question?

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#186

Post by sensanaty »

andix wrote: post #164

I think tech founders need to think smaller. Build software for a few thousand people and make a profit from it. Something niche. Something that is sustainable with a small team. VC eats up everything that's becoming bigger. And they will kill it. Their goal is not to run a healthy business that serves their customers. They try to take out as much money as possible and then trash it.

They don't give a shit about making a good product, the literal only thing any of these ghouls care about is line going up in the short term, because if line goes up they can dump their investments and move on to the next entity that they can get their greedy claws on and devour.

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#187

Post by FiatLuxDave »

bix6 wrote: post #25

I’m a VC and agree with much of this. The mega firms have totally warped VC and the desire for massive cash appreciation has led to a host of bad characters getting involved. I still love working with early stage companies but it is hard to cut your own lane when these mega groups control so many aspects of the stack and have such outsized capital and political influence. There are so many issues destroying early sta…

I'm guessing you located are in the bay area? If so, that is one thing under your control that you could change. The early SV VCs didn't build the industry by staying in NY (where the capital concentration at that time was). They had to get away from that scene to do what they did. It might be easier to cut your own lane if you weren't sharing the same turf.

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#188

Post by sensanaty »

cyberax wrote: post #142
claytongulick wrote: post #128

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I have so many thoughts about this, I'm not sure where to start. Doing a raise has always been weird, there are lots of things that impact it, and different players in PE have totally different theses and motivations. As a founder, finding the right investment partner has always been one of the most important and difficult things. As a rule of thumb, I recommend to founders that only about 50% of the value of the inv…

It's not our first fundraise, and not our first startup. But something _is_ distinctly different this time. People are no longer willing to wait for years and are betting on nebulous claims in hopes of a huge payout. And I feel that this goes far beyond the usual VC risk-taking.

I think society at large is increasingly hitting a gambling mindset fueled by algorithms murdering everyone's attention spans and dopamine receptors. Life is also expensive and it's NOT getting cheaper. Combine thag with endless stories of the rich and powerful getting away with heinous acts and most people have stopped caring. They stop caring about the future, they stop caring about any kind of long term thinking, because why would they?

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#189

Post by throwawayffffas »

andix wrote: post #164

I think tech founders need to think smaller. Build software for a few thousand people and make a profit from it. Something niche. Something that is sustainable with a small team. VC eats up everything that's becoming bigger. And they will kill it. Their goal is not to run a healthy business that serves their customers. They try to take out as much money as possible and then trash it.

In that environment the founder has no hope or reason to go public, making equity in the company worthless.

VC used to push to public exits in order to maximize the founders and VCs stake which turned employees equity to a liquid asset. Truly aligning everyones interests, nowadays not so much.

Re: VC isn't VC anymore

#190

Post by jongjong »

I've been feeling this for years. From my perspective, the purpose of VCs was to:

- Waste my time filling out forms to participate in incubators they would always reject me for.

- Fund my competitors so much as to drive up CPC for any given keyword as to make make ROI on ads impossible.

- Monopolize all tech markets through a variety of ways including contributing to the culture of making it taboo for companies to purchase solutions from small vendors who aren't funded by them. My friend who did get into the club described the ecosystem as 'incestuous'. The circular deals we saw going on with AI companies and hardware companies recently are not new; just the same thing they always did, on a bigger scale.

I entered the industry in 2012 so for me it has always been like this.

That said, it's really a deeper system issue which allows this.

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