>the common man never had a real chance to invest in your idea.
This part of your very pessimistic comment is certainly true, and I would like to point out that this is the government's fault, not Silicon Valley's. People who aren't rich are legally not allowed to invest in startups. [1]
But the unstated major premise of your comment, which is wrong, is that investment in startups is some kind of magic bullet for making tons of money. This is demonstrably not the case. One of the common justifications for the law in [1] is the fact that high-risk investments like startups are not necessarily any better than traditional low-risk investments (like stocks in big companies), and (by some metrics) are worse.
Startups used to IPO while there was still a large amount of risk, so it was possible for a public market investor to invest and capture value.
Today's startups choose not to. Anti-government types will say that the only reason is SOX. Honest and intelligent people will admit that there are a lot of other factors too, mostly around the finance sector getting better at capturing growth stage value.
I completely agree that VC is not a magic money making bullet, but I don't think it matters for the post.
Certainly there are patrons who will lose money. Having a portfolio full of lemons isn't going to make any financial elite any money. Most will hire accountants and financial and technological advisors. Some will provide extra services (advice, contacts, demo day audiences, etc) to bolster the prospects of their portfolios. Some will fail anyway. The ones who stick around are the ones who are good at it.
The real unstated major premise of my comment is that it is essentially impossible to be a self-starter unless you are already rich, which (along with the other stated bits) implies that growth in the tech industry concentrates wealth and that there is a mobility problem that runs counter to our nice cultural myth about geniuses in garages.
This part of your very pessimistic comment is certainly true, and I would like to point out that this is the government's fault, not Silicon Valley's. People who aren't rich are legally not allowed to invest in startups. [1]
But the unstated major premise of your comment, which is wrong, is that investment in startups is some kind of magic bullet for making tons of money. This is demonstrably not the case. One of the common justifications for the law in [1] is the fact that high-risk investments like startups are not necessarily any better than traditional low-risk investments (like stocks in big companies), and (by some metrics) are worse.
1. http://www.sec.gov/answers/accred.htm