For me I think it'd probably be either Ron Conway or Ram Shriram - they seem to be the closest thing there is to a bridge between traditional angel money and VC.
With VCs you trade time (to find them) and control in exchange for money and contacts. That is often a good and necessary trade but one I personally would not like to need to make.
Remember ever investor dreams of getting stock in the next Google - the one piece of their portfolio that will make up for all the other losses combined. A big hit of nature will come either from a massive acquisition (like YouTube - but just how many acquisitions have there been on that scale? The media hypes these up a lot but that distorts the actual perception of the regularity with which they occur) or from running a sustainable business e.g. Facebook that can grow by itself.
Remember ever investor dreams of getting stock in the next Google - the one piece of their portfolio that will make up for all the other losses combined. A big hit of nature will come either from a massive acquisition (like YouTube - but just how many acquisitions have there been on that scale? The media hypes these up a lot but that distorts the actual perception of the regularity with which they occur) or from running a sustainable business e.g. Facebook that can grow by itself.
You are correct, the two need not come together. I was thinking of the traditional idea of a technology startup.
If a startup was super good, so good that what a top VC offered was rounding error compared to what the startup could do for itself, they might be better off with angel money, because they could name their terms, and they'd probably get a better valuation. Google did that for their early rounds. But few startups are that hot.
http://www.imitrust.com/thepit/2007/01/25/sequoia-capital-the-entrepreneurs-entrepreneur/