[wpietri]

> But criticizing them for "not picking up the phone and talking to existing operations" is kind of missing the point. Of course the existing operators are going to say it won't work.

This is true but irrelevant. The important part is asking them why it won't work and then seeing if that's correct. VCs are supposed to invest in risky things, not futile things.

Of course, as with WeWork, there's a big gap between what VCs are supposed to do in terms of due diligence and what they actually do.

[bluGill]

VCs had so much money that they couldn't do that work. They have to invest all that money someplace no matter what, even if a moment's thought would show it was a bad investment because they need to show a return on investment, and sitting on a lot of cash isn't showing a return.

This is one way the little guy can beat the market: you are allowed to sit out the market for obviously flawed things. Beware though, that thinking is also why many little guys didn't get rich on Amazon, Microsoft, Apple, Google, and the other big names that at one time looked like bad investments.