Some people believe most of the VC industry is just a ponzi scheme, where you try to find a greater fool until eventually the final fool is the public. Of course by then all of the VC investors have made enormous returns on a company that was clearly never that great to begin with.

I'm not saying I agree with this, but it's an interesting theory. It seems pretty obvious that this sometimes happens, as evidenced by Softbank and WeWork, the question is how pervasive is this mentality?

I guess I should probably attempt to answer my own question and analyze how many VC firms hold onto stock after the company goes public, although that will only provide data for late stage investors.