Comment Re:High-tech culture (Score 3, Insightful) 186
By my standards, this was a huge success. By Silicon Valley hotshot standards, it was an abject failure. Different values, different metrics.
It's a failure if you took a 70% chance it'll flop and it gave a 200% ROI. Because if you invested in 10 companies you'd pay in 10*100 = 1000 and get back 3*300 = 900. Maybe you gambled on one company and tripled your money but then that's luck. That's essentially what venture capitalists do, they buy your business plan and sales pitch, scratch their lottery ticket and end up with a winner or a loser. Either way they're done, off to find new promising tickets to scratch. Which is why they care so much about the upside, they already know it's a gamble but they want to know the prizes. No point in a high risk gamble without a high reward to match.