Average return for VC firms: zero

More about problems with venture capital in Slate ( we discussed it a few posts ago here). The Kaufmann Foundation has found average returns in the industry crashed in the early 2000s - and have never recovered. They have been on average zero ever since. Matt Yglesias says:

The report offers a detailed operational critique of the industry, but I think the structural pattern you see time and again in these studies is that asset classes age like milk. Financial markets aren't perfectly efficient, so clever people think up ways to make real investment returns. But that happens in the early days when the asset class is considered risky and weird. Eventually a time comes when the class becomes recognized and respected. But by the time that's happened, there's too much money in the class and too much of it is dumb money that's just filling buckets.