Venture Capital Returns Have Not "Dipped Below Zero"
From A VC: How To Write A Misleading Headline
I know I don't have to explain this to anyone because it's done all the time, and I've done it plenty myself. But this headline from Claire Cain Miller's post on the NY Times blog yesterday is a good example of accentuating the negative in the headline:
Here's the facts from a VentureBeat story on the same data:
So let's look at this data. Venture returns across all funds and stages are 6.6% for a three year period, 8.6% for a 5 yr period, 17.3% for a 10 yr period, and 17.1% for a 20 yr period. Venture as an asset class has outperformed the public markets by 7.7% over a three yr period, 5.5% over a 5 yr period, 15.2% over a 10 yr period, and 8.4% over a 20 yr period.
And the headline that comes out of that data is that "venture capital returns dip below zero"?
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