Most VC backed businesses fail, and less obvious, changing an operational model (= company dna) into a VC-optimized one instead of a sustainable revenue optimized one puts a company on that failure path. It is not the capital, but the associated changes for the pursuit of the next round, and dangers of not hitting it. He is pushing back against the hits based business that burns out otherwise good companies, and Bryce is focusing on alternative funding strategies for companies so they can succeed without mega-succeeding.

It's pretty non-obvious. Eg, a founder yesterday in my area cited a ~$50M exit as a success example for what he is doing. Except to O'Reillys point, it may only be a success for a couple of investors, and possibly an income loss for most of the team. They looked good -- raised $2M, $10M, $23M, grew to 50-100 employees, sold for $50M after 5-9yr, helped Global 2000s and govs tackle some hard problems, probably had revenue around $5M+yr, and are now a reasonable part of BigCo's product portfolio for much more $. AND YET... if either the $10M or $23M have a 2x participation, only the VCs really made money (and less than their model needs, so a miss!), and only 0-$5M left to split with the 50+ employees who took years of reduced salary. That's the financial instrument stuff going on. On the leadership side, the hiring was fueled by funding, always more then operating revenue (otherwise no VC needed), so needed the next round or otherwise layoffs and a death spiral. (Only a few % of funded startups can choose to slow growth and switch to sustainable revenue.)

There are reasons to do today's model, but a lot of nuance, and from a creator's / equitibilty perspective, fundamental room for improvement. Glossing over that is no good.