The funny thing is that with 20% investments come board seats (usually). With board seats come influence. Influence affects outcome. It is completely possibl

The funny thing is that with 20% investments come board seats (usually). With board seats come influence. Influence affects outcome. It is completely possible that had any of these VCs actually put money into these missed investments, that the "investments" could have taken an entirely different (where different == bad) path. The end outcome of a startup is often the result of several key variables. Change any one variable, and so changes the outcome.