In the vast majority of deals, collecting your liquidation preference is a sort of soft landing - the VCs just get their money back (without interest). It's muc

In the vast majority of deals, collecting your liquidation preference is a sort of soft landing - the VCs just get their money back (without interest). It's much better for everyone if there's a big exit (either a high priced acquisition or selling shares on NYSE after an IPO) in which case the VC will convert to common and get 5x or 10x or what have you. That's not to overlook the host of differing incentives between preferred and common-which are numerous and often even intentional. Ratchets are closer to antidilution than they are to liqpref.