As much as we like to paint VCs as rational economical actors, some of them (and especially a16z) are as informed by ideology as by economy. Some prominent a16

As much as we like to paint VCs as rational economical actors, some of them (and especially a16z) are as informed by ideology as by economy. Some prominent a16z figureheads have been talking a lot about crypto, not just about the usual value speculation and "decentralized finance" and all that but especially about the libertarian utopian visions that pretty much focus on eliminating state intervention and bypassing regulations, taxes and unions and reframing customers or tenants as "investors". This may not be a crypto startup, but the language around it easily fits the same ideological bent. WeWork wasn't interesting because it was a real estate startup (its ultimate failure demonstrated how nonsensical the valuation was for its business model), it was interesting because of how it framed real estate. In other words: it wasn't functionally different from old school real estate companies but it was ideologically different in a way that appealed to this type of VCs. Given that Flow seems to be another real estate startup by the same CEO, it's likely that the ideological foundation will be similar. Startups often use words like "paradigm shift" to make themselves sound more interesting than they are but I think some VCs and some startup founders genuinely want to "shape how we think" about econimical relationships, and a16z's behavior so far strongly indicates that they have a very specific paradigm in mind, disagreeable as many may find it.