It seems to me (an outsider looking at the Bay Area culture) that people create what the VC's will invest in. In a way the VC companies are the first customers

It seems to me (an outsider looking at the Bay Area culture) that people create what the VC's will invest in. In a way the VC companies are the first customers they focus on. If VC's stop funding 90% of their portfolio useless social websites and instead focus on robotics, green tech, medical tech etc. I would argue that most new startups will start working on meaningful products.