Not romanticised — VCs rationally cultivate a standard of founders spending every resource, personal, spiritual, and financial, towards making their investment back 1% more likely. Having a life “Plan B” is taken as a Bad Sign. After all, necessity (and deprivation) is the mother of startup invention, etc. all the better of necessity is existential.

And after a day of meetings, the VCs lean back on their chairs and scratch their head over the dismal state of their founders’ mental health…