Of equal interest is author's other paper entitled "How Do Venture Capitalist's Make Decisions?" And after 900+ interviews it's neither jockey nor horse nor any other correlation, but spray and pray all around.

Am currently negotiating a small ($10k) angel investment in an ecommerce startup in Indonesia. All "go" signals are there: ambitious team, growing market, outside foreign investment, etc. But as far as calculating a probability for any IRR? 50% it goes to zero, 50% chance 10x or better return, is as good as any model for the risks faced at early stage.

So what was the data point that finally tipped the scale for me to pull the trigger? The fact that in Jakarta you can hire a fresh, world-class engineering graduate for $500 a month to come work for you!