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VC as an asset class loses money.

Within that loss, some companies do better than others.

Whether that is skill, luck or finding some way to tilt the board in your favour (political influence for example) depends on who you ask.

I have read that the statistics the distribution of success in the VC field was compatible with a random distribution with a very small skill bias.

I do not know if that analysis was accurate and it will be 10 years out of date now.

But that there are winners and losers does not mean that it is not a game of chance.

Do you know if those stats took into account massive economic events? Such as market crashes?

Which tend to happen at least once a decade?

People often have a point to make, and will often ignore such data to make it. To add to this, outside of honest intent prejudiced with personal bias, there are parties lookong to undermine any aspect of success the West has, by invalidating those successful models.

I don't understand what you are saying or asking. We can only measure against real world data.

If your strategy is successful 8/10 years and your lose enough money during the other 2 to be marked as unsuccessful, is that really a "successful model"?

> VC as an asset class loses money.

If you're actually open to changing your mind, provide the source for this claim.

I think you'll find you're wrong by most reasonable definitions of "losing money".

> If startup employees truly believe in their company they would also take no salary at all and just live on ramen noodles.

Not if you have no capital -- You still have to eat and be housed and that costs a lot if you don't have family wealth or other income streams, even with a good salary.

People also naturally have different levels of risk aversion. Not everyone can/should be putting it all on red every day.

> This really makes me question which VC firm you work at as you don't seem to understand how they work. If VC firms had no alpha then they wouldn't be able to raise a second fund at all. And you'd never see VC funds stick around.

You're looking at it at the 'fund' level not the individual businesses that make up the fund. To use the roulette example, if I bet specific numbers or splits, I will expect any one of those to certainly lose, but I just need one to hit to cover the rest. Since the individual bets here are human beings and companies and not chips on a table, there's definitely an element of what the top commenter said IMO.

> Not if you have no capital -- You still have to eat and be housed and that costs a lot if you don't have family wealth or other income streams, even with a good salary.

That's exactly their point; this exact same logic can be applied to VCs, too.

Do you mean to the employees of VCs? LPs do have capital, that's why they're LPs.

For the employees, the sentiment that you should bet on the sales pitch "I won't get you fired" over "I will make you wealthy beyond measure" still holds.

The LPs pay 2% management fee so the employees make some money regardless of the outcome, just like startup founders want to make some money even if the startup fails.

If startups had capital to coast on they wouldn't needs VCs. If VCs didn't have capital to invest they wouldn't be VCs.

One of these groups clearly has more money at the start of this arrangement and you seem to be ignoring the change in npower dynamic that creates.

There are VCs, and there are LPs. VCs do the work of finding investments and setting up funds; LPs provide the money and wait for it to grow.

Of course, from a startup perspective, both really just look like VCs. But in reality, the people working at VCs but who are not LPs are not usually rich.

Nobody who writes a comment like that wants to know why they’re wrong. “Money people bad” is their mantra. You’ll never change it, they’ve swallowed too much propaganda.

Hardly, I'm a CEO.

Of a company with how many employees?

Seven years in business. Number of staff varies with the environment but we've had as many as 40 on all hands, mostly part-timers with specialised skills.

It's not a very ordinary company. Too many lawyers.

Is that supposed to mean something? Half of Hacker News is a startup CEO.

By your own logic, you better pay yourself a $0 salary, $0 on secondaries, and invested all your personal savings into the project, because otherwise clearly you don't believe in your own company. Right? And I hope that is also true about every one of your employees?

Check the bio.

> Check the bio.

> Mattereum

Still none the wiser.

Looks like an interesting idea.

Haha, yeah I’m still a CEO of a YC-backed company too. I wouldn’t use it as evidence of anything except that I’m capable of having a company not go bankrupt for 17 years. (Man typing that makes me feel old.)

CEOs of tech companies fall for the anti-capitalist propaganda as much as anyone, in fact maybe more. There’s always been a far-left political lean to tech. Which hey, whatever floats your boat.

> If startup employees truly believe in their company they would also take no salary at all and just live on ramen noodles.

Yes.