Vandelay Technologies, Inc.

honestly sometimes these days I do feel like a lot of crypto is smart-looking vaporware propped up by ZIRP VC dollars that need to be allocated

you're not wrong

VCs invest in things that have a good story of how they *could* be huge ("huge" meaning 10b+ exit)

and startups literally don't work until they do

so until the startup works, it looks like vaporware and the VCs look dumb

when the startup works, it looks "real" and VCs look smart

Yeah I think the issue rn is a lot of startups are in the “don’t work” phase, whereas most people expected some clear things to emerge by now

i think what you see as a bug i see as a feature

venture capital is the riskiest asset class to fund people and ideas that basically no one else will

why won't anyone else fund it? because its the riskiest asset class and 99% of startups fail

so a big part of the startup journey is "looking like you're going to fail while believing you can't" because you hold multiple competing views at once:
1. you're doing something most people think is stupid
2. you don't think it's stupid
3. you think it could be huge if it works
4. you know at the same time that it probably won't unless you keep trying