When going after VC money, entrepreneurs should understand that while the financial interest of VC’s can be aligned with that of an entrepreneur, they can never

When going after VC money, entrepreneurs should understand that while the financial interest of VC’s can be aligned with that of an entrepreneur, they can never be identical. VC's portfolio is much more diverse than ours. Therefore, after we take VC money, it is not enough that we succeed; we must succeed big enough to make up for their other losses (or losses by other partners of their firm). In general the VC's and their partners are willing to take much greater risk than entrepreneurs alone since in their eyes, succeeding small is as bad as failing big (“go big or go home”). So by taking money from VC, we will substantially increase our own risk profile and force our financial outcome to be binary, either a small piece of a big pie or nothing. My own experience is that with VC investment, your probability of having a zero outcome is not only real but common.