Why we should be thankful that we live in a world in which VCs exist, even if they yell at us during board meetings, assuming they'll fund our companies at all:

Imagine living in a world in which professional venture capital didn't exist.

There's no question that fewer new high-potential companies would be funded, fewer new technologies would be brought to market, and fewer medical cures would be invented.

We should not only be thankful that we live in a world in which VCs exist, we should hope that VCs succeed and flourish for decades and centuries to come, because the companies they fund can do so much good in the world — and as we have seen, a lot of the financial gains that result flow into the coffers of nonprofit institutions that themselves do huge good in the world.

Remember, professional venture capital has only existed in its modern form for about the last 40 years. In that time the world has seen its most amazing flowering of technological and medical progress, ever. That is not a coincidence.

via pmarca-archive.posterous.com

-Marc Andreesen