Yea but investing in a startup is far from a sure thing. They could easily lose their money

It's possible that the best performing startup fund will be one that invests in nothing, collects a fee, and returns the rest of the money later.

It's possible the best performing knee surgeon will be the one that doesn't perform knee surgery, collects a fee, and returns your knee in the same condition it was in.

Nonetheless, that would be fraud.

> the best performing knee surgeon will be the one that doesn't perform knee surgery, collects a fee, and returns your knee in the same condition it was in.

Why not? Eg: "Sorry sir, but as you are a weak/old/high-risk patient, knee surgery would be very dangerous — my advice is to stay in a wheelchair"

This situation occurs fairly regularly with cancer when they find out it's inoperable once they open you up. You still gotta pay for it though.

The data on the ineffectiveness of common surgeries is overwhelming, yet they continue to be performed, because compensation is tied to it.

The "Do something" syndrome is strong - https://fs.blog/2015/06/do-something-syndrome/

I think it was Taleb who said the best way to assassinate a public figure is to provide them with a personal physician

That’s called a consult fee!

Or a salary.

But these clients have already expressed a desire to invest in startups. If your idea of working in their best interest is to "not invest in startups" then you shouldn't take the capital (and fee$) in the first place.

I agree that if everyone is being ethical then that is the right thing to do. I'm just worried about the situation where a fiduciary might actually be doing what they think is best by waiting for a better opportunity and I'm not sure how you judge whether they are doing that criminally or sincerely.

I imagine the burden of proof would be pretty high. Like you said, it's hard to prove.

They need to prove he was acting maliciously. These cases are hard to win because you can easily say you thought you were doing the right thing.

I don't consider investments over cash to be clearly better. There is the idea of a "cash is king" economy, when investments are exceedingly cheap due to liquidity in the market. But to capitalize on these events, you need to have the cash on hand for it.

Berkshire Hathaway is well known for sitting on mountains of cash if they don't have access to what they feel are good investments.

Isn’t he operating a VC fund? Shouldn’t he just be doing capital calls for the fund when needed versus sitting on cash typically?

I've read recently that some if not all brokers are largely supported on the money they make on uninvested cash balances, so they actually would be better off if their customers didn't do anything.

> has fiduciary duty, he has to act in the best interest of his clients

Reminds me of a friend who was sued in 2009 for parking a trust in CD's at three and a half percent.

What if the startup ecosystem took a downturn, and it lost 50% its total valuation?

Would investors then have a problem with Mithril sitting on the money, doing nothing?

Investments shouldn't be judged in hindsight, the ends don't justify the means, etc.

Hindsight is the only meaningful metric for investments. Was it a good bet or not? Full stop.

That's like saying the supreme court's verdict is the only metric for whether something is constitutional. If that's so, then where do they get their rulings from?

You're implicitly denying the difference between correlation and causation.