1y ago

Hey tech billionaires, if you want to talk about radical change, let’s abolish venture capitalism

www.theguardian.com Hey tech billionaires, if you want to talk about radical change, let’s abolish venture capitalism| Samantha Floreani

The future that technology elites like to imagine looks remarkably similar to the one we’re in

Do you support sustainability, social responsibility, tech ethics, or trust and safety? Congratulations, you’re an enemy of progress. That’s according to the venture capitalist Marc Andreessen.

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153 comments

Based on my experience with venture capital, I'm not convinced venture capital has ever produced anything worthwhile.
- Couldn't agree more. My takeaway from three years working at a VC is that investors are fucking idiots, and lying to get investment is basically normal.
  
  My favorite anecdote from "the cold start problem" is how zoom got funding not because they thought it was a good idea - the investors thought it was a solved problem - but because they were personally friends with the founder of zoom.
  That's the quality of decisions we're dealing with.
- That’s a bit myopic. VC is just a fancy word for large financial backer.
  You can basically credit the entire age of discovery (America, Australia, etc.) to “VC” in the form of kings and wealthy elite financing voyages.
  I think modern VC goes awry when they become defacto decision makers for the venture in question.
  
  VC accomplishments:
  ✅ Genocide
- Hey now. It produced a ton of Ferraris.
  
  Good point!
- Except for funding the majority of the companies that exist, you mean
  
  By shear numbers, most companies are small mom and pop owned businesses.
  Edit: The VC shills are out in force. Go read an economics paper if you're serious about learning something.
  
  Do you have a source for the claim that VC funded companies would have been replaced by equivalent companies if VCs did not exist? I find that somewhat hard to believe.
  
  Post-1980s tech companies maybe. But not most companies, no.
  
  Well, yeah, it didn't really exist before the 1970s in its current form. But it's not just tech, other companies like FedEx also got VC funding in the early stages

153 comments