Did VCs Overcomplicate a Three-Step Job?

I’ve been reading so many VC strategy posts that my head is spinning. I’m wondering if we have lost the plot.

David Beisel just wrote it well: venture capital stopped being one business a while ago. We just keep underwriting it like it’s still one.

His partner Lee Hower wrote the longer version. A $10B megafund and a $300M fund aren’t big and small versions of the same thing. They need different outcomes, serve different founders, and are doing different jobs. The relay race is broken. Dan Gray posted data showing small funds’ LP share in steady decline while large funds went parabolic. Lucas Vaz argued the diversified seed model is dead.

But I keep coming back to something simpler.

a16z showed everyone what was possible — the media empire, the platform team, the scout program, the content machine — and the industry collectively asked: what else can I build around the edges of investing? Go earlier. Go later. Add sector focus. Launch a new vehicle. Start an accelerator. Everyone chasing the ball.

Meanwhile the actual job may be getting lost through all these insightful analyses. Find a great entrepreneur. Back them early. Help them win. That’s it. That’s always been it.

The funds that are struggling aren’t struggling because small is wrong (or big for that matter). They’re struggling because they got distracted building a firm when they should have been building relationships with founders.

Strategy matters. But it can also be a sophisticated substitute for the hard, unglamorous work of finding the next great company.

Did we overcomplicate this?