thought: 

venture capital is giving millions of dollars to relative strangers, for products that haven't really been built, in markets that barely yet exist

it is the worst system of funding innovation, except all the others that have been tried

At least some VCs managed to make this model works in terms of financial return. Most other types of fundings (grants, R&D, etc) haven't managed to captured the financial returns and hence, generally not sustainable without government/foundation backing.