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Comment by ChuckMcM | Hacker News Reader

You just need this sentence:

"VCs aren’t unintelligent. Nor are VCs evil (not all of them anyway). They’re not even necessarily misaligned with you. What they are doing is optimizing for a very specific outcome. Share that alignment, or don’t take their money."

If you understand what the VC wants and you want that too, then you are aligned. If you don't then you are making a mistake.

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Good advice that most founders who are offered $$$$$$ will ignore without the barest of a thought.

That almost gets you there, but founders who misunderstand what VCs want will still take the investment. That sounds like a nitpick, except that, in my experience, lots of entrepreneurs misunderstand what VCs want, thinking that 7 - 8 digit exits are what VCs aim for.

I'm very curious. What is it you believe VCs aim for?

I think he is suggesting VCs want much larger exits than the average founder (at higher risk). Isn't most of Y combinator's success from just a couple massive paydays (airbnb and dropbox etc)? Whereas an exit like reddit in the 15 - 20 MM range is considered a big win for the founders, but quite "meh" for the investors. VCs need big wins to be really successful.

Thanks. That is what I was suggesting.

>= 9 digit exits.

I'm not a VC, but if $5MM (7-digits) is raised and the exit is only $20MM (8-digits), that's an okay return, but it's probably not what the people who put money in were hoping for. 4x seems good until you consider the tremendous risk the investors exposed themselves to.

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