Virtually every great tech company was built with the help of VCs. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Yelp, etc. The alternatives to these companies wi

Virtually every great tech company was built with the help of VCs. Google, Amazon, Facebook, Reddit, Twitter, Yelp, etc. The alternatives to these companies winning was not an open solution run by a co-op of hippies. The alternative was some shittier solution by Microsoft, MySpace, Yahoo, or even nothing at all. It really might be nicer if The Search Engine (Google), The Message Broadcasting Platform (Twitter), The Social Platform (Facebook) were NOT run by private companies, with all their faults and biases. It would be better for the world if every person and company could build on them in a completely competitive and fair way. We would get better stuff. It just doesn't seem to work out that way. Either people aren't motivated to do it or it's not possible. Whatever the case it's just not how things work (for now). Given the way it does work VCs contribute in a very important way. Their effect seems to be purely additive. They don't prevent anyone from succeeding by alternative means. Mitt Romney seems like a very different kind of VC than helped tech companies. He handled much later stage stuff (IIRC), making him more of an investment banker type.