Without arguing against the power law distribution (which is real and measured), the discussion here is more about vehicle. VCs usually have an LPA that positio

Without arguing against the power law distribution (which is real and measured), the discussion here is more about vehicle. VCs usually have an LPA that positions the fund as "smart money" (justifying the management fee and carry) and therefore coupling investment with active company involvement which must by definition hinder the quantity of investments made. The above mentioned funds are longstanding and extraordinarily successful series of funds - an individual fund typically doesn't make more than 30 or so investments. There are certainly seed funds / programs like 500, YC, and Right Side Capital that use different mechanisms (notably: passive investment) in order to deploy more bets. The approach was arguably pioneered by Ron Conway who was at the time derided for being "spray and pray" but was later found to have exceptional returns due to the efficacy of "black swan" investing - which is to say that pretty much all of the signals that one believes confidently are good markers of a successful startup are wrong in precisely the most important category-breakout cases. Consequently a humble investor desires to both invest in a large number of companies, realizes that their active involvement is likely to do as much harm as gain (witness returns on investor-controlled vs founder-controlled companies), and constantly questions their own assumptions with portfolio performance data. But an overall model / LPA that forces you into a "smart money" model will keep you from operating in this way. This is where the advantage of the angel investor comes in - to take a bet and to put the Venture back in Venture Capital. The angle I press people on is: what macro trends do you believe to be true that the market doesn't realize yet but probably will in the next decade? What companies are playing to that trend? Clear opinions on this can guide you to investments that outperform. One example of this was the bet we took on Mexico seven years ago; VCs thought we were nuts because they only followed headlines talking about drug violence and hadn't kept up on rising household wealth and engineering+design talent. We had very little competition in finding the best deals in the country and those deals are now ripening - one is up 300x. Perhaps this could be described as Buffet applied to angel investment - where is there fundamental likely value that isn't fully appreciated by the markets and where you have the patience and appetite to wait for the market to catch up? I don't see a lot of VCs operating with this kind of flexibility to be truly thesis oriented. I'm not trying to bash VCs here; for growth capital they are stellar - some businesses really do need tens to hundreds of millions of dollars to mature and that is where VCs shine. Not a lot of angel groups can pull together a $50m deal! There is room in this ecosystem for both angels and VCs; each much play to their strengths to succeed.