> advancing the culture of and maintaining their position in elite backscratching networks has payoffs for that outside of portfolio returns

But they have investors. Their investors care about portfolio returns, not the elite networks of the VC administrators.

> the same networking and nepotism factors are at play for many of the other business deals besides venture capital that a new business will need,

So basically running a business is easy and pretty much anyone can do it, you just need connections rather than competence.

None of this makes any sense.