Ok, fair enough, but today's Risk Adjusted ROI is quite low. And comparing returns from a couple of decades in the past with current returns seems unhelpful to me.
My point is that your standard has to be for your choices of the capital today versus historical returns. So if you compute for expected value of a million dollars sitting in a bond fund today, versus sitting in a basket of startups, are the returns less in the latter case?
You can't compare things to today’s bond market, because you don't know what the risks are. It's all historical data vs. other historical data.
As to solid returns today, regulated public utilities companies have ok returns and low risks. It's not zero risks and the upside is limited, but many people consider them the benchmark for low to moderate risk investments. (Though you still need due diligence as leverage can still kill them.)
Effectively zero risk investments on the other hand have a huge price premium.
PS: The 2/20 aka 2% management fee and 20% performance is the real killer. Huge VC funds are a great way for VC's to get rich so they are all about selling them. There are also a few back channels to do insider deals.
My point is that your standard has to be for your choices of the capital today versus historical returns. So if you compute for expected value of a million dollars sitting in a bond fund today, versus sitting in a basket of startups, are the returns less in the latter case?