[fractionalhare]

I don't really care if you're a former fraudster or not. I am still outright rejecting the claim that the venture capital industry is engaged in, or equivalent to, a systematic Ponzi scheme. If you want to critique it, fine, but don't commit an abuse of terminology.

At this point I've worked for, worked with or invested in over 50 different VC-backed startups. I have been brought in to see their code and the internals of their products. Yeah sure some opportunistic sociopaths like to raise stupid seed rounds on a fugazzi pitch deck. And the industry is frothy with fundraising. But you can't categorically classify the industry as fraudulent.

There exist many varieties of high risk investments with a long time horizon which are not fraudulent. Everyone knows what they're getting into. Cases like Theranos are not the norm, which is why they received outsized attention when they're uncovered.