Yep. Joel Spolsky summarized the risk/reward imbalance in an article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/VC.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/VC.h

Yep. Joel Spolsky summarized the risk/reward imbalance in an article: http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/VC.html http://www.joelonsoftware.com/articles/VC.html This one is a bit more personal and rather bitter: "An Engineer's View of Venture Capitalists". http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/careers/careerstemplate.jsp?ArticleId=i090101 http://www.spectrum.ieee.org/careers/careerstemplate.jsp?Art... This guy's main experience was in the 1980s, so it doesn't take into account technical people who got rich in the 90s boom and then went into VC. So things may have somewhat improved, in that you might find VCs who really grok your idea. Nevertheless, that doesn't address the mismatch of incentives.