It appears the author doesn't realize that VCs are normal businesses trying to turn a profit. If there was a profitable opportunity to find "99.99% of talented,

It appears the author doesn't realize that VCs are normal businesses trying to turn a profit. If there was a profitable opportunity to find "99.99% of talented, unknown founders" by accepting cold emails, then some VCs would start doing it. I would guess the reason they don't is because the authors assumption is wrong. If you're a talented, driven founder with a growing startup then it's not really that hard to get a meeting with a top tier VC. The problem with accepting cold emails is the sheer volume. Unless there is a standard filtering process, partners will waste too much time with crappy startups. A solution to this would be to create a standardized format (kind of like the YC application) which founders could submit to multiple VCs. Fortunately, AngelList is already busy solving this problem.