I would imagine that 44% return went a long way towards the vaunted status A16z had. In that, while perhaps not expecting to stay at such a high level of return, it's news because it wouldn't have been expected that such a drop (to the point where investing in common stock market index funds would have yielded a similar or better return) would have happened.

The point, as mentioned by the article, is to consistently beat out other similar investments at that scale (ie, index funds, private equity, etc). 44% isn't the competition, no. At a minimum 15-16% in the long run.

But otherwise at a more local level high risk capital expects high rewards.

And isn't 16% ans 12% still excellent? It seems better than almost anything else really...