Everything that's wrong with venture capitalism condensed into a single fifteen word sentence. Bravo.

If you can't provide a billion dollars worth of value, extract a billion dollars worth of grift!

I hear A16Z is hiring.

How is being outcompeted “grift”? I feel like I’m missing some context here.

Why do you start a startup? Is it to build an idea you believe in and believe it is potentially lucrative or is it so you can go through the motions, say the trendy things, and get outcompeted because in the end you are primarily focused on getting acquired with a 1B exit?

Spoken like someone who has never started a business. Brex raised much less than $5b and Capital One apparently thinks it is worth more than that (otherwise they wouldn’t buy it).

This is called value creation.

I think the investors who put $300m in at a $12b valuation would disagree

I don’t think you understand how liquidation preferences work.

They will get $300m back.

Opportunity cost sure. But zero nominal loss.

Definitely. And some random guy on HN knows the value of Brex to Capital One better than Capital One does.

Brex can be worth $5b today and also be worth less in the future. These two realities don’t conflict. Acquisitions can and do end poorly. But the vast majority work well. I am not sure what you don’t understand about that?

Your statement is true on average because the world’s economy is continuing to function.

> can't continue to function even if acquisitions were only 80% value creation on average

The number is much much lower than that. Most acquisitions fail or don't have much impact.