I agree with you and the parent comment, but to be fair to VC, they're also assuming risk. For example, if Wework had IPO'd earlier the public would've been holding the bag instead of private investors.

If they had IPO’d earlier there probably would have been better oversight of the excesses.

Don’t sovereign wealth funds and pension funds also invest in VCs? So even if it’s “private” people are holding the bag?

Also, I think comparing WeWork to AI labs is not valid.

These labs have increasingly become of public interest and are shaping economies around the world, WeWork was just not at that level.

Kind of agree but their risk is actually spreading through the entire system, as today shows.

WeWork collapsed because of their S-1 was on fire. If they had gone public earlier, it would have still been on fire. The reason they lasted that long is because Masayoshi Son didn't do anything that resembled due diligence, but the market would have always done it.

I agree but not sure WeWork is a good example. That smelled like pump and dump scheme from the beginning. They pretended to be tech company, while actually being landlord middlemen. Plenty of people predicted that downfall.

VC money is weird. It can come from private individuals, from loans with extremely low interest, from private funds...

The thing is normally it's money that's intended to be burned in the search of a unicorn, cheap money, so there's no real "risk" there.

What risk is VC assuming in late stage? The only way a business fails at that point really is fraud or management failure.

The common perception is that OAI/Anthropic are pumping up their hype before they unload on retail in their IPOs