[mrwilliamchang]

I have no first hand knowledge of this, so I'm probably wrong. Maybe it's more accurate to say that the late stage investments are driving valuations up (ie the a16z analysis). But a lot of these later stage investors would not have felt comfortable without the liquidation preferences. The key distinctions is that liquidation preferences are not critical a VC's decision to invest, but are critical to the later stage large institutional investor's decision.