[dmix]

He literally gets asked about this directly in the article and admits as much:

> TC: Almost every time we’ve talked over the years, you’ve said that work is busy. Certainly, it slows down sometimes.

> MP: Sherwood has mostly been on an upward run since we started [in 1992], but we did slow down in 2014, and we couldn’t figure it out. Well, VCs were running their companies further to the edge to [improve their internal rates of returns before they hit the fundraising trail]. Turns out we had our best quarter ever in 2015 [as soon as they stopped funding those companies].

Blame the news industry for running with the same lead every couple of years. It works.

Much like the predictably news industry, people her predictably don't read the article before dismissing it.