2026-01-08 18:11:13

There's a stark shift happening in how capital flows. Years back, venture capitalists were throwing money at founders just to help them build—pure subsidy, no strings attached on personal finances. Fast forward to today's market: now they're nudging entrepreneurs to put everything on the line, betting their personal net worth, even their homes, as collateral against the value of their own assets. It's not about funding innovation anymore; it's about who's willing to risk it all. The game has fundamentally changed.

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DeepRabbitHole

· 01-08 18:41

Damn, the VC playbook is brilliant, from giving away money for free to forcing you to sell your house—classic "you win, I take a cut; you lose, get lost."

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DefiPlaybook

· 01-08 18:40

This logic is somewhat fragmented... The early VC narrative of "pure subsidies" itself is untenable; it's just that the risk bearers have shifted positions. According to data, the proportion of founders' own capital has increased from 12% in 2015 to about 38% now, but the driving force behind this is not VC "requirements," but the increased difficulty of fundraising and the transfer of valuation setting power—it's worth noting that this actually indicates the market's enforcement of survival of the fittest. The specific analysis is as follows: under the current financing environment, individual capital investment has indeed increased, but a risk warning is in order—this does not mean that the startup failure rate has decreased. From three dimensions: first, the financing rounds are lengthening, and the uncertainty of financing cycles is increasing; second, LPs are indeed demanding more rigorous founder skin in the game; third, the market is淘汰ing projects with excessive leverage. In other words, VC is not "forcing" you to blow up your house, but the market naturally selects those founders with commitment... this is actually a signal filtering mechanism.

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OnlyOnMainnet

· 01-08 18:38

Laughing out loud, isn't this just a change of soup without changing the medicine? The previous idea of free-riding entrepreneurs has now been changed to forcing them to mortgage their houses. VCs are getting more and more ruthless.

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MevTears

· 01-08 18:36

I can't stand it anymore. VC folks are just like gamblers—forcing entrepreneurs to put everything on the line before they agree to fund?

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FalseProfitProphet

· 01-08 18:29

Haha, this is the norm in the Web3 circle. I've seen through it long ago. The entrepreneurial dreams of the past have now turned into life-or-death gambling games, and VCs are quite shrewd.

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SleepTrader