Let's not veer off into crazytown here. I'm not saying the founders are irrelevant to the business. I see why you think I might have been. I'm saying that it's not despicable for venture capitalists not to care about the founders wedding. They are making an investment. Do I care about the well being of the guy who manages VFINX?

What percentage of the founder/investor drama you read about on HN comes from misunderstandings about that basic fact? 90%?

You can imagine a better world in which everyone worked together as a team to the betterment of all involved, but the reality is that you are in business, and there are going to be times when business doesn't give a sh#t about your problems.

I think this gets overlooked because we read a lot about a very specific investor who seems unusually attuned to the well-being of its investments. But they do that because it makes very good business sense, and because they've rigged their model so that the success or failure of any one investment is much less impactful than it would be at Battery Ventures; they have less incentive to be ruthless.