I think the issue is that a lot of the money spent by VC's (collectively) in the last 5 years or so, has not been especially well-spent. Not just in the normal

I think the issue is that a lot of the money spent by VC's (collectively) in the last 5 years or so, has not been especially well-spent. Not just in the normal "lots of small bets, only a few of which will pay off" kind of way. Instead, in the "lots of really big bets, most of which have no chance of paying off at this level" kind of way. The alleged "black swan" of Covid-19 is really just an excuse for what has been obvious for a while now, which is that a lot of recent VC money was 5-10x what it should have been, and as a result a lot of otherwise potentially reasonable business ideas have become value-destruction-machines. So, I think it is still clear that a savvy VC could make money by investing now...in good ideas, funded at an appropriate level. The problem is that many of them are setting on 10x the amount of money that they can do that with.