VC's are a tiny slice of the economy and have little impact on the vast majority of companies.
In the wider world there is a near surplus of capital that has been driving down investment returns for hundreds of years. Not that long ago 15% ROI was considered a poor investment now your doing good to make half that. So, if anything capital is losing most of it's power.
PS: Also, VC's are managerial not capital. You don't need any mony to start one just convince a other managers that are investing still other people's money that you know what your doing.
Sure, but that's all there is left for a lot of people, once they're trapped in high-COL areas and unable to properly bootstrap.
Bank loans want personal liability, which rules out anything that has more than a ~5% chance of failure. Even the mid-risk/mid-growth tech companies (derided as "lifestyle businesses" by VC-istan) have 10-30% 5-year failure rates. So they're out. There really isn't anything to fund these mid-risk/mid-growth companies. VCs don't like them, because the company's goal is to be independent, not an overwhelming corporate megalith.
Savings/bootstrapping work if you have them, but I challenge you to find a 30-year-old in SV who (a) has appreciable savings, and (b) wasn't lifted by a connection ("acqui-hire" welfare checks count as "lifted"). Such people are fairly common outside of SV and NYC, which might surprise you. I know a few programmers out in PA who, even though they make (just slightly) less than I do in salary, they're my age and worth half a million. They were able to actually fucking save money.
Perhaps I am a moron for chasing the prestige of the VC-istan and Wall Street jobs, throwing me into a city where landlords win and talent struggles. My "savings" is the career benefit of having spent my 20s in NYC, but it's questionable how much that matters. I'd rather have the autonomy that comes with money and the credibility that comes with having higher-quality work experience.
VC-istan (and, to a lesser degree, Wall Street with its bonus system) are economies where, instead of savings, you put everything you have (time, money, energy) into this weird system that distributed outsized rewards, intermittently, to a lucky few. Wall Street is more decent than VC-istan, I feel like. Wall Street is some part meritocracy (esp. prop trading) and some part connections, but it's honest about what it is. VC-istan is a who-you-know economy that pretends to be a meritocracy, and if you call the lie by it's name, people fuck with your career in the worst kind of way.
How is anyone trapped in a high-COL area? I understand it can be difficult to leave an area, particularly one with lots of jobs, but sometimes you don't have optimal options in life and you have to figure out which one is the least worst. In this case, the hypothetical person you're talking about is trapped by his inability to make a difficult decision. Nothing more and nothing less.
> Savings/bootstrapping work if you have them, but I challenge you to find a 30-year-old in SV who (a) has appreciable savings, and (b) wasn't lifted by a connection ("acqui-hire" welfare checks count as "lifted").
I am in my early 30s, live in SV, have a liquid net worth in the low six-figures and have never been "lifted" by an acquisition or acqui-hire. I was nearly broke twice in my 20s.
> Perhaps I am a moron for chasing the prestige of the VC-istan and Wall Street jobs, throwing me into a city where landlords win and talent struggles.
You were not thrown into a city, you chose to be there. As you said, you chased "the prestige of the VC-istan and Wall Street jobs."
And please stop this ranting about landlords. People who earned money, invested it in property and generate income by renting said property out are not gaining at your expense, at least no more than the farmer who grew the food you eat.
If your rent is too damn high, move.
> VC-istan (and, to a lesser degree, Wall Street with its bonus system) are economies where, instead of savings, you put everything you have (time, money, energy) into this weird system that distributed outsized rewards, intermittently, to a lucky few.
I'm not seeing what you're seeing in the parent comment. Which of his points were incorrect? If the answer is "none", I might consider apologizing for implying they wrote that comment in bad faith.
It's not unusual for a 30-year-old in tech in SV to have half a million banked, even without a previous acquisition or acqui-hire. How do you think companies like YouTube and GitHub get founded?
In the wider world there is a near surplus of capital that has been driving down investment returns for hundreds of years. Not that long ago 15% ROI was considered a poor investment now your doing good to make half that. So, if anything capital is losing most of it's power.
PS: Also, VC's are managerial not capital. You don't need any mony to start one just convince a other managers that are investing still other people's money that you know what your doing.