In practice, the startups' own legal expenses will probably also be lower. In the bad old days, lawyers on both sides would engage in a leisurely and expensive back and forth, knowing they'd both get paid out of the amount invested. But if the VCs have to pay their lawyers out of their own management fees, they'll instruct them to make the negotiations fast and simple, which will in turn decrease the billable hours on the startup's side as well.
And PG, thanks for changing the world. You made the currents swirl in a way that in some small way influence all the ripples like this downstream.
Eight years in the insurance world has shown me that the two biggest law firm "bad behaviors" are excessive billing and multi-party meetings. Both of which, as noted, VCs will be in a stronger position to refuse to pay.
I call this version of the principal-agent problem the "new boat problem." When a partner wants a new boat, she/he bills more hours.
Even more pumped for YC interview on Sunday after reading the comments.
You responded with 32 words to a 37 word post so that you could quibble about a single word, or 3% of that post. While preaching on the righteous subject of "intelligent discussion," no less. So if we're going to complain about empty calories, I'm pretty sure you're winning that game.
Better way: just use your own words, be authentic. Pretend like you're Steve Jobs, and each word you write is your next product.
2. I didn't tell them what to say, only what not to say. Putting words into their mouth might have been inauthentic, but that's not happening here.
3. Just because people are "behaving the way they are", doesn't make it authentic. In case you haven't realized, we live in a world filled with constant sophisticated attempts at mass behavior modification. We are all victims from time to time, and behooves us to at least be introspective and aware of when we are. (not that meme language is a part of that, it's more an accidental artifact of networked humanity, but point generally applies).
4. Using memes is a rhetorical crutch for lazy writing.
Hopefully (as pg points out) the next thing to go is the weird way that employee option pools are handled.
What if I never have to pay another lawyer?
The advantage of having the VC pay the legal bills is that they are a bigger fish and can more easily put in place and enforce the legal billing guidelines. Also, as a much more likely repeat customer, the VC will likely get better bills to begin with.