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You’re misunderstanding the idea.

Venture capitalists don’t invest their own money, they raise funds from other people and institutions, and make funding decisions on their behalf.

The idea here is that journalists have skills and domain knowledge that would help them make better than average decisions when it comes to media startups.

So: Raising and directing capital, not necessarily originating it.

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Sure, I guess so. I suppose I latched on too hard to the rather editorialized HN submission title.

I do believe generally-speaking that folks with editorial leadership are probably as good if not better as run-of-the-mill domain VCs at assessing founder quality in a journalism context, as the article suggests.

But really we're talking about asking journalists to consider a career in venture capital, which is...fine I guess?

Journalists are already heavily involved in capital raising through applying for grants and scholarships. Our time is already thin, so this article is effectively asking us to switch careers or become part-time investors.

I can’t help but laugh a bit at the absurdity of this thread. It’s like the “learn to code” meme but way more stupid. Or “why don’t poor people just take money out of their trust fund?”.

It is suggesting switching careers, yes.

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