I think the real calamity is that VCs are a clique and they all talk to each other in all kinds of inappropriate ways. They're like high school girls in the sen

I think the real calamity is that VCs are a clique and they all talk to each other in all kinds of inappropriate ways. They're like high school girls in the sense that if a few like you, they all do. That gives them a shocking amount of power for a supposedly "meritocratic" industry. VC-istan is still more meritocratic than most other industries, but only because the competition in that dimension is ridiculously soft. If you had a few hundred independent decision makers, you'd probably have something that looks like a legitimate market. Instead, you end up with something where the VCs hold all the cards (because they can turn off supposedly unrelated interest with a phone call) and still don't do well financially. The financial underperformance exists because of the morale problems inflicted by their disproportionate power; startups are staffed with enormously competent people, but the good ones are viciously careerist-- and why shouldn't they be?-- and you get evaporative-cooling problems if you don't have an well-above-normal (~1%) ability to lead in such an environment. We revitalize the startup world by moving power away from active, power-hungry investors focused on making their careers and back in favor of passive investors interested in making money. So, I'd like to see Kickstarter or something like it succeed. Right now, average people with $0.1-2.5M net worth ("mom-and-pop investors") can only invest in securities related to massive corporations, in which case the only good option is to invest in a broad-based index fund (90+ percent of "stock pickers" leave you worse off than an index fund; and these companies are just too complex for individuals to get a consistent advantage by "knowing the company") or they can invest in individual small businesses (restaurants started by people they know) but that's extremely risky. Some diversified way for average people to invest in small-business talent and get the potentially well-above-normal returns available in doing it would be great.