When Calpers started reporting this info their portfolio companies (VCs like Sequoia) were furious and tried to block it. It exposed their made up IRR numbers to public view. But as a public agency, Calpers was able to stick to its guns and provide a valuable service.

People forget how tiny the VC business is: just a pimple on the PE market. Typically it’s a tiny part of a big investor’s portfolio, just to have some exposure diversity. You can tell how important it is to them when you attend an LP meeting for a VC fund: the GPs may be bowing and scraping* but among the LPs’ representatives are a lot of 22 year old first year associates, which shows how unimportant the sector is to these big guys.

* props to the GPs who are both not arrogant and not ingratiating to their customers (cough sorry, “LPs”). In my experience there are fewer than you would think.