In my opinion, the thing pg & YC understood better than anyone before them is that Venture investing statistically has a very very long tail pay-off. By micro

In my opinion, the thing pg & YC understood better than anyone before them is that Venture investing statistically has a very very long tail pay-off. By micro investing in hundreds (by now thousands) of companies at the earliest possible stage (where they could fairly ask for a reasonable percentage at a very low dollar cost), they vastly reduced the risk of coming up with no big wins. This is all basic betting strategy for professional gamblers. You also have to know the odds, so I'm not downplaying the importance of evaluating founders and business plans. That's like the Blackjack equivalent of basic strategy and counting the deck. Without a betting strategy that reflects the statistics of the game you're playing, the likelihood is you will bottom out before you succeed.