Goldman Sachs got branded a "vampire squid" in 2009 — an image that stuck because Goldman is transparent about what it is: a bank that trades against clients, prices deals to its own advantage, with conflicts of interest. Everyone assumes Goldman is optimizing for Goldman. That assumption is priced into every interaction with them.

VCs runs the same playbook - portfolio-construction, LPs as the real client, founders as one bet among thirty, diligence that's sometimes decorative - but wrapped it in founder-friendly language: "we're operators, not suits," "we're partners," "we're mission-driven," Patagonia vests instead of pinstripes. The product is the same risk-capital-for-equity transaction JP Morgan ran.

The packaging is completely different.

The asymmetry is almost entirely a marketing achievement, not a structural one.