VCs certainly have a role for high risk high reward investments. Equity is very expensive and if you can avoid giving it up, you should. Bank loans aren't an op

VCs certainly have a role for high risk high reward investments. Equity is very expensive and if you can avoid giving it up, you should. Bank loans aren't an option for everyone but if both VCs and loans are on the table, you should pretty much always take the loan (unless it's personally collateralized). I don't have any issue with the idea of VCs and generally I think they're better aligned than private equity. The big point is not to value smart vs dumb money. Just take the best deal and use the money you saved to hire someone. No amount of "smart" is worth even an extra 0.5% on the cap table. When comparing VCs, I'd like to safe vs dangerous instead. Does a VC have a reputation of creating problems for founders or giving them space even if things aren't going well? That's way more of a consideration than if a VC has better intros or a smarter team.