[wilder]

"What keeps this going is that each VC thinks they're better than average. Most of them are wrong."

Only some have this belief and only some of those are wrong, but it isn't what 'keeps VCs going' generally. That would be the high pay and our prestige culture.

As to the point about interest rates, you may be correct, but for the conclusion to follow we need an account of why capital makes yield chasing more aggressive in the private vs public markets. With public markets on all-time highs, cost of capital there doesn't look historically expensive. I suspect that you are correct about rates distorting the private market but for different reasons.

Source: am a vc, am professionally obligated to speak with vcs.