There are two stories that have come across my radar in the past year that have reinforced many of the things that frustrate me about tech startups and venture capital: the well-known story of Stanford-dropout Elizabeth Holmes and the implosion of life-sciences startup Theranos over the grand promises of life-changing (but not peer reviewed) science that is looking likely to be bogus; and the lesser-known story of Dr. Carol Lynn Curchoe quietly shutting down biotech startup 32ATPs over an inability to find investors willing to back a hard-science startup at its earliest incarnation.

Namely, it reinforced that in early-stage fundraising, storytelling is more valuable than data; that raising seed money is a function of who you know rather than what you’ve built; and that more often than not, social/mobile/local internet startups (particularly derivative app companies that can be acquihired by Facebook or Google within 1-3 years) are more interesting to early-stage investors than inventions and technologies that could truly change the world. Read the full story here.