4 ms·

Apple barely made it also; this is a nature of this game. High risks, power returns, winner take most.

• foobarqux 13y ago
  Right but if your strategy was to invest in computer hardware in the 80s and 90s you presumably did pretty well. If your strategy was to invest in cleantech in the last 5-10 years you probably did pretty poorly. If VCs were able to see today's distribution of cleantech returns without seeing exactly who the winners and losers were I doubt they would have allocated nearly as much capital to that industry as they did. So yes, high risk, high reward. But that means sometimes you get stuffed and in general those who invested heavily in cleantech got stuffed.
  • DaniFong 13y ago
    I'm wondering if this is true, and if so, why? It's the same winner take most dynamics. In most fields, like disk storage, it was extremely competitive and most profits disappeared. VC in general has poor returns for funds outside of the top 10 or 20.
    • foobarqux 13y ago
      It is not the same winner take most dynamic: Most companies in a sector are not competing against one another, often they provide complementary goods and services. Also, small pieces of a big market can still be large. Putting aside the specific example of computer hardware it is clear that industry and sector macro trends exist: Consider the DotCom boom when tech VCs made superlative returns.