I'm just gonna be straight up that probably none of you have any real experience with VC. Just statistically, it's probably the case. It's anecdotal, but I want to share my story.

I helped found a company about three years ago. It's a software/ services company that focuses on specific kinds of climate change risk. No I won't tell you who we are. Anyways, me and my cofounders are first time founders, although we both have built business segments within companies, this was our first time in our own. We did try for VC that first year. We basically got rejected all around. What I learned is that the basic function of VC isn't to fund good ideas. It's a filter to keep opportunities in the hands of those who already have them. It's a kind of social filter to make sure only the "right" kind of people get funded. It's pure credentialism and institutionalism. Anyways, several of our competitors took the cash. As a result, they ballooned in head count and we're forced to do things the way the vcs expected them to. As a result, almost all of these companies failed or pivoted. We didn't get funded. We got rejected by all fronts. Instead we just built our client base one brick at a time. Well, now their customers are our customers. We're signing deals with the big names and still haven't taken VC money. We've got the best in class technology and they are bleeding money.

VC is a poison pill. It's not there to drive innovation but to filter down who has access to opportunities. Their ideas about what works or doesn't are bad, and largely driven by the culture they are apart of. They worship elitism and credentials, but will the respect for those who are willing to do the work. It's inherently extractive. They add nothing. Want to kill a business? Take VC money.