Maybe there's ground in the middle that looks something like this: VCs have a stronger bargaining position in capital intensive startups than in software. Stron

Maybe there's ground in the middle that looks something like this: VCs have a stronger bargaining position in capital intensive startups than in software. Stronger bargaining leads to more power to direct the returns to their pockets rather than the founders'. So the model is VCs maximize their after-costs (founders and otherwise) rate of return which is likely to be higher in non-software ceteris paribus. However all is not equal, the extraordinary returns in recent memory have come from the web, and so venture capital firms will likely still be putting their thumb in the pie, even if it means cashing out to founders, letting them be CEO, giving them smaller rounds, etc. for software start-ups.