[mi100hael]

What really happens is the company that over-sold their capabilities gets the $100M and then ends up not meeting their stated timeline but investors are already 9-figures deep so they just accept there were "unforeseen setbacks" and continue supporting the company rather than admit they were hoodwinked.

Meanwhile, the realistic company that was passed over runs out of money and folds.

[RyanZAG]

I think most startups understand this implicitly, and therefore most pitches are lies. Most of the rest of the comments are about "it doesn't have to be this way!", but it's almost an inescapable local max. The previous big breaks in technology were nearly always the 10X in 1 year types, but it's extremely hard to tell who is actually a 10X in 1 year because they are so extremely rare. Probably impossible, since more likely than not, the 10X is pure luck on the part of a competent 1X than any kind of real difference.

So the sensible 10 years for 1X that will make you profit but not overwhelming profit don't get funded, so the 10 years for 1X have no choice but to lie and get the funding they need, and investors get stringed along with all their sunk costs because most of the time that 1X payout is still a lot more than their sunk costs.

[AndrewKemendo]

This is exactly right and there are numerous examples of that.