Good Piece on Venture Blow-Up

I just saw Inc's article by Max Chafkin on Jonathan Abrams and his experience starting - and getting kicked out of - Friendster. AS the opening says:

Jonathan Abrams created the first online social network and enlisted Silicon Valley's best and brightest to run it. Yet Friendster flamed out spectacularly. What went wrong?

It's an interesting look at the weakness of the venture capital model, at least so far as companies go. It's a sink or swim philosophy, and not geared to bringing out the real value of the businesses. That agrees with what I've seen close up and with what I've heard from those who have gone the backed entrepreneur route. It's also an excellent look at how a company and business "experts" can be completely blind to the obvious, insisting on wading through heavy currents when a footbridge is within reach. The company wanted a certain degree of automatic links among members, creating an exploding data nightmare. (It makes you wonder how business networking site LinkedIn.com manages, though it can get sluggish.)