[jjoonathan]

> [VCs] want to be the insurance company

Wow, I never looked at it that way but it makes so much sense. I always wondered why supposedly pro-entrepreneurial factions so heavily cheered policy that would increase payouts while simultaneously slamming social policy that would decrease activation barriers when, to me, the latter seemed like it would be much more effective at achieving the goal of increasing entrepreneurship (what with the reduced transaction costs of bootstrapping and all).

Now I get it. Not only do they not care about entrepreneurship which they can't get a cut of, it threatens their business model.

[mc32]

I suppose you could gauge it against entrepreneurship rates in places where there is more 'social security', ie Scandinavia and other parts of western Europe.

[jjoonathan]

That's a neat idea, but it would be hard to control for confounding factors like network effects.