I'll be honest -- my first impression after reading this piece was to research Peter Sims and figure out his connection to a16z, since my gut reaction was that blatant puff pieces usually have some sort of connection hidden below the surface. (I was unable to find anything.)

Sims brings up the following point about VC returns:

> The predominant old way of thinking about venture capital is that you: a) build up a great brand and reputation with a large portfolio of investments, b) hire partners who have individually strong brands of their own, and c) collect hefty management fees on each fund. The industry standard is a 2–2.5% yearly “management” fee, a figure that gets pretty large on a billion dollar fund. And, in my experience, not surprisingly, the senior people get a disproportionate slice of that management fee. At the same time, the venture capital industry has been a glaringly poor-performing asset management group, consistently underperforming the S&P 500. (For more detail on the struggles within the VC industry, a recent article on the Harvard Business Review Blog by Diane Mulcahy, a senior fellow at the Kauffman Foundation, entitled “Venture Capitalists Get Paid Well to Lose Money” is well worth reading).

But never swings back around to it (unless I missed it amongst the flowery prose). Which leads me to ask: are there data points that compares a16z (or other VC firms!) against the S&P 500, besides the aggregate?