My question to the group here is, are you individually willing to research the background of the people and funds you, as founders take as investors, and to what extent? Said more bluntly, would you shut your company down if you couldn't find other sources of financing?

I think the obvious answer is yes, but that's too obvious in some sense because these things lie on a spectrum.

Epstein post revelations should be outcast, that much is obvious. What of less egregious actors or associations? There are more than a few lecherous investors with less public exposure of their acts and equally deep pockets, wandering Sand Hill road.

Examples like the massive amount of Saudi national money [1] that is fueling funds like Softbank and Sequoia, and directly to companies like Uber, call into question where exactly the line is. You could replace Saudi with your particular questionable investor de jure.

In fact, when I've had conversations like this in the past, most recipients look at the question as pragmatic: "All money is dirty, and this was our best option." Point noted, but that just means founders and CEO are drawing their own arbitrary lines in the sand.

I don't have some kind of magic formula, but I think it's worth being introspective about this.