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that could definitely be right. There do seem to be a number of funds that consistently hit winners more often year after year (say, something like 15% winners vs. 10%)

an alternative explanation to the best funds being good at finding winners is that they are good at avoiding the investments that have a low chance of being homeruns. this is where I was heading with my last paragraph but realized it requires a whole new post.

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Citation? What funds are better at picking winners consistently year after year?

I think Sequoia, YC, USV and some others have probably had statistically significant outsized returns. Always hard to know because if you let enough people try someone is going to flip a coin heads 10 times in a row, but I do think some funds have created sustainable advantages (through winner-picking skills or otherwise).

That may be because they are big. (YC may not be big in terms of money invested, but they are in terms of number of startups.)

It may also be because they somehow help those startups succeed. Thus, they don't pick winners, they make winners.

Another possibility is that successful startup founders self select themselver into those founds.

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