I mean, juicero got the money instead of the slaps in the face it deserved. And there's thousands of startup like that. I think VCs are terrible at picking and a dice would probably do a better job.

And yet, who would you trust more - a CEO that raised 100M on their "vision" or someone who got slapped in the face?

A raise is random noise, not signal, based a confidence game within the VC ecosystem. LP capital call->GP gamble based on waves arms around considering VC underperforms as an asset [1] [2] class even when accounting for the grand slam returns. It's 0DTE options gambling dressed up as skill and an art. But, you know [3] [4] [5], lottery still pays out sometimes.

TLDR A raise is not robust signal in this regard.

[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7260137

[2] https://www.linkedin.com/posts/peterjameswalker_most-venture...

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/There%27s_a_sucker_born_every_...

[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Overconfidence_effect

[5] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Survivorship_bias