The words; Horse, Stable and Bolted come to mind. VC's and their stupid valuations have created this problem.

The idea that a business isn't worth investing in because it's only going to make millions, not billions, also doesn't help. VC's would be better off diversifying in lots more companies that have a better chance of making a more modest profit, than a few that are then pressured to make 10's of billions.

I guess ultimately it comes down to the point in which they exit, the dumb PE ratios of Facebook, Twitter etc allowed someone to cash out nicely when they floated, but for the suckers that brought the stock on the public market have no hope of recovering their cash.