and investors simultaneously kill competition by honest companies...'you have a 10 year roadmap to do X? not interesting. i'll invest $100m in this company that says they can do 10X in one year!'
Meanwhile, the realistic company that was passed over runs out of money and folds.
So the sensible 10 years for 1X that will make you profit but not overwhelming profit don't get funded, so the 10 years for 1X have no choice but to lie and get the funding they need, and investors get stringed along with all their sunk costs because most of the time that 1X payout is still a lot more than their sunk costs.
That's a hypothesis not well supported by data or theory.