The Farcaster formerly known as Kchamp. Books, beats, bodybuilding, bright ideas and beautiful things.

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The government can give NON DILIUTIVE money to startups in the national interest directly 

Why do we need a16z to middleman — we don’t

The government would (and does!) give money to the wrong companies

If they get it wrong every single time, they just point a gun at your head and say “another ten percent this year or I’ll shoot you in the face”

If a16z gets it wrong often enough, all their money ends up in the hands of others and they go away

Strong agree that government should stop giving out money, subsidizing VC risk is bad. Government subsidy of almost any form is bad.

My point is not that there would be an actual tax hike. It was just meant to be an illustration that there’s no organic and automatic accountability mechanism for government, as exists for private enterprise, at least in a healthy system free from government manipulation.

VC is a massively positive sum game that grows the pie. We are better off with VCs taking cuts than with no VCs at all.

There is no way that capital extorted from industry and citizens, then put into the hands of unelected bureaucrats is going to be allocated more efficiently than it would be by professional investors who pay their bills with their winners.

So, assuming that we all want startups to exist and thrive, it’s better to have allocation handled by VCs with skin in the game than by inept corrupt bureaucrats, or even perfectly honest smart bureaucrats, because their incentives aren’t aligned.

👎 the public already subsidizes vc risk (hello svb bailout? still mad about that) and the gov is paying either way. it’s just with VCs, we pay middleman markups 

failure =! Tax hike necessity, also. That’s a slippery slope!!