Is Early-stage Venture Investing Harder Now?

Michael Moritz says the venture business he got into way back when is very different from the venture business today, with few parallels, and that it has become much more difficult. He does not know that he would flourish in today's venture business. Benefits from the 80s and 90s began to dissipate maybe 15 or 16 years ago and do not exist today.

One benefit was imperfect information. Before the internet, unless you were very close to things, you did not know what was happening. Because of the internet, everybody around the world knows exactly what is happening and has more or less the same information.

Far more entities now pour money into the very early stage private market: individuals, two or three people banding together in a small firm, and huge mutual funds. The very early stage private market is very different. Forty years ago and 30 years ago, an individual could form a real, close relationship with the people they were getting into business with.