[tomkit]

Honorable, but it could also be a slippery slope: how far back do you look? If an LP, or investor in general, uses their personally earned money, but they earned it through capital gains from tainted money - let’s say from stock in a company with human rights issues - do you ask about that and if so do you take their investment?

If you only look at one degree, ie are your direct investors’ money clean, you could also be targeted for laziness in the “supply chain” of your investors’ money. This is similar to problems with blood diamonds, organic foods, unethical coffee etc.

What's needed is a framework and policy in the community for what's acceptable due diligence.

[cowpig]

Slippery Slopes are a slippery slope.

If you reason about everything in extremes, how can any solution ever be acceptable? The worst case for all real-world solutions are always bad.

[tomkit]

You can't. What's needed is a framework and agreed-upon policy of what is acceptable due diligence in the community when taking investment money. Varying degrees of "organicness" for startups - like what you see in the meat section at Whole Foods.

[BeetleB]

He did not say "Let's reject all this because it is a slippery slope." He is merely alerting people that the slope is slippery.