Venture capital

After 13 years in the game I have finally decided that venture capital is a silly idea.

What is ok is the capitalization of a young business by would-be owners or operaters, in return for equity.

Venture capitalists invest in young businesses and then often totally screw them up because of their requirement to ‘exit’, i.e. to sell their shares or, more likely, force the sale of the whole company to a third party. This VC model is justifiable if everyone involved is aware of the game and occasionally money is made by some or all of them.

But the structure of a VC funded business leads to a construct of human interactions where honesty, honour and trust are simply tradable commodities, to be plied at some stages and abandoned at others, subject to the requirements of personal gain.

It’s not good for the soul. After a while, if you look carefully,  it’s very hard to tell the difference between a VC and a sixty-year old hard-core salesman.