I suspect it was really a matter of how VC sold itself in a ZIRP environment. They were "the yield guys" in an environment where there was no yield. They could

I suspect it was really a matter of how VC sold itself in a ZIRP environment. They were "the yield guys" in an environment where there was no yield. They could have advertised themselves as "we're making big long term investments in serious innovation that will maybe pay out in the distant future" and they probably could have raised money that way in an environment where money was basically free, but not as much. So instead we got "we're making the world a better place through paxos algorithms for consensus protocols."