I've already "shown how it's done" in technology many times for US national security, in US business, and in research for US national security and business. Th

I've already "shown how it's done" in technology many times for US national security, in US business, and in research for US national security and business. The US DoD, DARPA, NSF, and NIH have long shown the world "how it's done", in total for 70+ years. The simplest arithmetic shows that US information technology (IT) venture capital (VC) is not a very good business compared with consumer Internet: That is, a US IT VC firm might get up to assets under management of $5 billion or so, but the founders of Google, Facebook, and more have more than that in their personal net worth. One problem with VC is, even if they decide to take their e-mail seriously, really the best they can do is just from what arrives in their e-mail, and far from VC there are some serious obstacles here: First, a standard assumption is that, since computers are to be used in the work (they likely do remain the great largely unexploited opportunity), the assumption is that computer science is the best academic background. Well, that assumption is false; if want to be quite serious about the work, then that assumption is badly false. Second, for really good results, it will be necessary for some good people with good academic backgrounds in crucial fields and topics outside of computer science to pursue entrepreneurship, and so far the appropriate US academic culture discourages this. For this assumption, the US DoD knows that it is largely false and, thus, concentrates on pure and applied mathematics, mathematical and applied physics, and some relatively mathematical topics in electronic and other parts of engineering. The DoD makes very heavy use of computing but not so much of computer science. So, for good results in VC, it will be necessary to catch up with the DoD and get good people with the 'right stuff' from academic fields other than computer science, and that catch up effort will be difficult. Really, for good projects, the situation is much better on the entrepreneur's side of the table because there one can cook up terrific stuff instead of just waiting for it to arrive via e-mail. My point that VCs and A16Z ignore their e-mail really was well supported by your statement that e-mail is about the worst way to contact a VC partner. Okay, the VC partners don't want to take e-mail seriously. Bizarre, but true, and so be it. For the project in question, once it gets enough 'traction' to be of interest to a VC, the revenue will be way past when the project would accept equity funding. E.g., one VC responded that they wanted to see 100,000 unique visitors a month before investing. Okay, but for the project in question that would be about $40,000 a month in revenue from a server with $1500 in parts and an Internet connection costing about $100 a month. With the $40,000 a month, VC equity funding, a C-corp with VCs on the Board, etc. would be about as welcome as a skunk at a garden party. One big reason: For the project in question with its technology the VCs can't evaluate, there will be more such work to do, less important than the work done already but, still, very much worth doing. But, of course, the Board would have to approve the organization and budgets for such work. Tilt! A Board of VCs would not be able to do such work because they would not be able to understand the project they were being asked to approve. So, such a Board would a hole in the bottom of the boat of the company. The current A16Z Web site mentions that the number of VC firms has been shrinking. Since they refused to read their e-mail, easy to believe. Darwin has a lot of work to do and, thus, is a very busy guy; still Sand Hill Road and Winter Street are due for a visit from Charles just any day now. Likely what will be left are firms willing to read e-mail and evaluate projects with new, advanced, powerful, valuable technology that is the crucial core of a valuable business. In the meanwhile, entrepreneurs should concentrate on some good research for some good projects that can be brought to market and significant revenue with, say, a server from $1500 in parts and an ordinary Internet connection. The research is the crucial part. Sure, VCs won't invest in projects based on research, not even if the research is already in production quality code. But think of the flip side: For such a project, VCs won't invest in any competition, either!