I'm not sure what the n = 1 Google argument is supposed to accomplish - is boo.com relevant too? These are single data points in an argument about aggregate i

I'm not sure what the n = 1 Google argument is supposed to accomplish - is boo.com relevant too? These are single data points in an argument about aggregate investment quality and the only meaningful statistic is aggregate ROI now. I think it's interesting you're jumping back to the late 90s again, because if you had a stronger argument vis-a-vis the quality of VC investment over the last few years, I really don't think you'd need to go there. You could be absolutely right. There could be a lot of fantastic companies just sitting in VC portfolios making profits and waiting for the market to turn in order to maximize their exits. That is true. But it's also true that owning profitable companies does not generally incite the sort of liquidity crisis that seems prevalent in the industry right now. I'm not saying you're wrong. I'm just saying there's very little evidence that the people you're proposing get a massive windfall in the form of a $30 million turn at the roulette table know what they're doing. And some of what they're doing hurts people who are competent and profitable. So in my industry, I don't think the word incompetent is really that strong. They could be making money, they're not. YMMV.