Meanwhile, venture investors have come to have much the same risk profile as investment bankers, where gains are private but losses are socialized. Venture capitalists typically get paid a percentage of the fund as an annual management fee—usually 2%—so a VC firm with a billion-dollar fund will have taken out $200 million in proceeds over the ten-year life of the fund even if the firm loses money for its limited partners (the investors who put up the vast majority of its capital). Put another way, the $58.8 billion in venture capital investment in 2015 paid out nearly $1.2 billion to venture
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