I think there is an underlying assumption when VCs "invest in nothing" - the founder knows how to make a startup succeed, the actual product notwithstanding. Th

I think there is an underlying assumption when VCs "invest in nothing" - the founder knows how to make a startup succeed, the actual product notwithstanding. The biggest risk in startups today is not the product, but the founders ability to succeed. The idea doesn't matter, the execution doesn't matter, the connections don't matter, even the near-term profits don't matter. What matters is if you can get a million people to use the product regularly. Risk(Founders who have done that once and have no product now) < Risk(First-time founders with a product). This brings me to the biggest problem with startups that nobody seems to address and in fact, every successful/smart/talented/skilled person contributes towards it - every single startup is reinventing the wheel and that is inefficient. Step back and think about any given startup. They have to do all of the following: Setup accounting/legal/corporation, manage employees/payroll/benefits, perform data analysis/SEO/marketing, excel at PR/word-of-mouth, engage with users, encourage developers, design their brand, manage infrastructure (even AWS/Heroku accounts need pampering), source funding, present at tradeshows/industry-conferences, and tons of other boring things that you will see mentioned in expensive 20 page e-books and "X things you should do" lists. The worst part is that they have to this on top of making their product work in every environment: multiple browsers, mobile devices, app stores, online/offline modes, hi-res/lo-res graphics, hi/lo bandwidth, multiple languages/regions, and do all of that 24/7. Why isn't all of the repeatable stuff outsourced in bulk, while still enabling the founders to develop the product and own equity? If you work for Google, you don't have to worry about any of this and just hack away on your code and let someone else market it and manage payroll. But you're trading away your high-equity/high-risk for a fixed salary/bonus. Why isn't there a median between coding at Google with no equity/risk and do-everything in your startup? Being an early hire at a startup doesn't cut it because it's high-risk/low-equity. Imagine if you could join YC and all you have to worry about is making a good product and someone else manages everything, while you still get to collect X% of your product sales. And if you feel YC isn't doing a good enough job, you can easily switch to XYZ and after a brief catch-up, they can take over everything. Certainly this happens already during acquisitions or switching vendors. Why can't there be a one-stop-shop-startup-vendor who handles everything about running a startup? And why can't there be more of them so they can all compete for the best founders/products? I know I've simplified a lot of complex issues here but I think big ideas start with solving difficult problems. And running a startup isn't easy. Running 800 is near impossible. But it could happen. Off-topic but related: I kept trying to clean my LCD thinking there were small spots on it. Turns out it is the site's background.