This isn’t a question of hypocrisy, because the two roles aren’t at all analogous. Plato’s definition of beauty was “fitness to the end in view”, and the skills and characteristics that make for a great VC are quite different from those that make for a great entrepreneur.

Think of it as the difference between the best spy working for the CIA or MI5…and the best spy recruiter tucked away on an academic campus keeping a keen eye out for those with high potential to be an espionage agent.

The problem isn’t that VCs should look like entrepreneurs, but rather that (as is pointed out in the question details) the current venture capital system is pretty much broken. The official “death warning” may have come last week when the Kauffman Foundation put out a damning report explaining why they were going to be pulling much of their own endowment from venture capital, and is worth reading here

*original post can be found on Quora @ : http://www.quora.com/David-S-Rose/answers *