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Why anyone invests in any VC fund, when you can do better in the stock market with an index fund, at much less risk, is beyond me...

opportune 7y ago
With VC you are actually investing in new businesses whereas with stocks, unless you are buying at IPO, you are just buying a piece of a pie. And the upside is much greater. What these results show is that a16z maybe needs to be more discerning but not that the business model is unsound
rongenre 7y ago
At a certain level, having the returns be uncorrelated is a lot more valuable than total returns.
esmi 7y ago
https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2019/5/1/18511540/silicon-valley-foreign-money-china-saudi-arabia-cfius-firrma-geopolitics-venture-capital https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2019/5/1/18511540/si... Anyone may not be who you think it is and their needs are likely different than the typical retail investor.
nradov 7y ago
Perhaps, but we don't really know how much risk many of those VC funds are actually taking. With liquid, publicly-traded stocks we can sort of use variability of returns as a proxy for risk. But there's no equivalent good way to really quantify VC fund risk. Sure you can do risk modeling but it's just an educated guess.
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago
  > there's no equivalent good way to really quantify VC fund risk Distribution of returns. Longitudinal volatility is a (good) proxy for this.
  - nradov 7y ago
    Not enough data points, too much noise.
rossdavidh 7y ago
Presumably, you don't invest in a VC fund unless you have already put a lot into the stock market. Diversification?
PopeDotNinja 7y ago
Most people don't get promoted by saying they invested 100% of available assets in an S&P 500 index fund.
pongogogo 7y ago
Because the volatility and risk profile of the two investments is not the same. The index will pay you beta, which is the market return - no more, no less. If you build a portfolio where you combine an investment in the index fund with other, different investments, you can build many different portfolios which all have different risk profiles. This is useful, as people have different needs. For example, if you're happy for your money to be locked away for a long period of time (say you're running a university endowment fund), you may be better suited to these longer term, illiquid type of in investments.

opportune 7y ago

With VC you are actually investing in new businesses whereas with stocks, unless you are buying at IPO, you are just buying a piece of a pie. And the upside is much greater. What these results show is that a16z maybe needs to be more discerning but not that the business model is unsound

rongenre 7y ago

At a certain level, having the returns be uncorrelated is a lot more valuable than total returns.

esmi 7y ago

https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2019/5/1/18511540/silicon-valley-foreign-money-china-saudi-arabia-cfius-firrma-geopolitics-venture-capital https://www.vox.com/platform/amp/recode/2019/5/1/18511540/si... Anyone may not be who you think it is and their needs are likely different than the typical retail investor.

nradov 7y ago

Perhaps, but we don't really know how much risk many of those VC funds are actually taking. With liquid, publicly-traded stocks we can sort of use variability of returns as a proxy for risk. But there's no equivalent good way to really quantify VC fund risk. Sure you can do risk modeling but it's just an educated guess.

JumpCrisscross 7y ago
> there's no equivalent good way to really quantify VC fund risk Distribution of returns. Longitudinal volatility is a (good) proxy for this.
- nradov 7y ago
  Not enough data points, too much noise.

rossdavidh 7y ago

Presumably, you don't invest in a VC fund unless you have already put a lot into the stock market. Diversification?

PopeDotNinja 7y ago

Most people don't get promoted by saying they invested 100% of available assets in an S&P 500 index fund.

pongogogo 7y ago

Because the volatility and risk profile of the two investments is not the same. The index will pay you beta, which is the market return - no more, no less. If you build a portfolio where you combine an investment in the index fund with other, different investments, you can build many different portfolios which all have different risk profiles. This is useful, as people have different needs. For example, if you're happy for your money to be locked away for a long period of time (say you're running a university endowment fund), you may be better suited to these longer term, illiquid type of in investments.