I don't know how conscious people are, but in general there's surely awareness that as long as a business seems to be on track to success, investors have the po

I don't know how conscious people are, but in general there's surely awareness that as long as a business seems to be on track to success, investors have the possibility of some exit regardless of whether the business succeeds in the long-term. For the most extreme variant of this, VC investors in Dropbox or YouTube or whatever don't need to care about whether those companies eventually go bankrupt. So, investors might believe that Uber can actually make it, but as VC goes they are just looking at Uber being on track up to their exit. They don't actually worry about the deep long-term. So, there's less difference than you might think between consciously creating a false appearance and exiting versus believing (though perhaps wrongly) that the business will be viable beyond the exit. The VC folks are focused on the period up to their exit either way.