> They invest in things the society didn't even know it needed. 1. They invest in things that will out-perform other investment vehicles over the time frame th

> They invest in things the society didn't even know it needed. 1. They invest in things that will out-perform other investment vehicles over the time frame that the LPs are interested in optimizing over. Generalizing beyond that seems like a fool's errand. VC is huge, incentives myriad, but, at base, return to investors is eventually a hard constraint on any private investment vehicle. The article's main point seems to be "venture capitalists are capitalists and often retain/double as fantstic PR firms". Which, yeah. Good or bad, it's true. 2. "invest in things the society didn't even know it needed" is something that most anything high-yield claims to be doing in one way or another. Not all, but probably most. Not many other places to get high yields. > but I think it's good that these businesses exist... Imagine a world where everyone was building things that everybody already knew they needed. It would be a dull world and very deterministic. Not a world I want to live in. This "is VC good or not" argument seems a bit off-topic for the article. It's possible that VC serves an important -- even critical -- purpose, and also that VC needs to be complemented by robust public sector investment because there are some things that just aren't going to have good returns over even long times frames (or ever) but which still benefit society. "Markets a great but not omniscient or perfect". Which, yeah. Anyways, I think the article does more harm than good, because it sets up an us-vs-them. But, as the digital libraries -> google example illustrates, VC and public sector investment aren't mutually exclusive. They can support one another in a virtuous cycle: public sector investment in scientific progress -> VC-funded innovation -> tax dollars -> public sector investment in scientific progress -> ...