There is definitely a lack of transparency in venture funding, and studies show overall how VC's have been barely breaking even. Most of the big name investors were successful entrepreneurs (e.g. Andreessen and Netscape, e.g. Khosla and Sun, etc) who are assumed to be good investors. In reality, if most of these founders put their money in standard index funds, they would have better returns adjusted for risk, but without all of the publicity that they crave.<p>Also, the quote attributed to Andreeseen at the end was originally from Warren Buffet's 2001 letter to shareholders. "After all, you only find out who is swimming naked when the tide goes out." <a href="http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett" rel="nofollow">http://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Warren_Buffett</a>