Venture Capital's Coming Collapse - Forbes.com

"Many investments have been marked down significantly. Investors would have been better off buying the S&P 500 index, which is down 0.4% annually in the same period."

I think I agree and also disagree here.

Richard Dawkins talk about how genes suited to doing well "in average" environments tend to be the ones preserved. In other words, evolution produces people good at whatever the average tasks are in their environment, so "super heroes" are unlikely to emerge from evolution, but, say, "cubicle drones" are. Mediocrity, or being able to "fit in" in the "mean" environment, is a good survival-predictor for genes.

So, to VC. "Super hero" VC's will indeed go away. Meaning the "I'm investing in the latest dotcom craze and I am getting 25% or more annual returns" sort is indeed perhaps nearly extinct. But the VC types that looks at the market demand and diversifies his investments for more modest (average) returns, is going to survive. For example, a VC firm heavy in high tech could well collapse in a tech recession. But a diversified VC firm that invests in "essentials", like say, natural gas, that is still going to be needed even in a recession, is probably going to ride out the recession.

So, if I am in VC, which I am not, but if I were, I would look at building a diverse portfolio heavily weighted towards things like natural gas, utilities in general, that kind of thing, stuff that won't go away easily. I would, in other words, try to be an "average gene", not a "super hero gene" because per Dawkins, the average gene will be more likely to survive. Stay diversified, stay conservative, tack towards utilities and "essentials" if in a recession, and you might be "mediocre", but at least you'll survive as a VC firm.

In a word Superman may be dead, but the selfish gene of mediocrity is alive and well. :-)