Interestingly, many of our investors (LPs), and many LPs of our fellow venture firms, are nonprofit institutions such as universities and foundations that were originally started by people with names like Carnegie, Rockefeller, Ford, Stanford (a "robber baron" of his age), Yale (a governor of the British East India Company of all things), Hewlett, Packard, and the like. Money earned through capitalism that got plowed into nonprofits that invest in modern venture capital -- it's a wonderful cycle.

I have no idea how your comment relates to what I've said.

I said "Seems that over the last several years or so there has been an uptick in wealthy people using peer pressure to get other wealthy people to give away their money"

Did you miss this?

http://givingpledge.org/#enter

Is there peer pressure? Sure, but at the end of the day, everyone of them made a personal decision to make that pledge. Could they have redistributed their resources to more businesses? Ok, but they chose the charitable route. Are there people that need these resources more than businesses? Absolutely: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Millennium_Development_Goals#Go...

Sadly, we do not live in a perfect world. The resources and opportunities we take for granted are the same ones others do not have. Giving others a chance at the life and opportunities that were given to us is probably the wisest investment of all. The returns are deeper than dollars.