I think the risk-to-reward equation is the same for anybody who gets involved in this space, but I think what makes it difficult for institutional capital to get into this space as early as the angel investors do is simply the uncertainty. that's related to this. Obviously, institutional capital is usually based on certain formulas and theories that are followed in order to determine how it will be invested. Angel investing oftentimes is a lot more of a gut feeling. It's much more about investing in the person, the individual, rather than the technology. It's not as clear cut.
If you ask seasoned investors about their portfolio and they have 40 companies in their portfolio, they'll often tell you that they had no idea that the five that ended up being the big successes were going to be the big successes, while the ones that they thought were going to be really successful ended up being dogs and not going anywhere. When people are looking at this honestly, they'll admit that there's really no way—or that it's very difficult—to know how to predict what's going to happen in this space, because there are so many variables.
Often, angel investors are actually looking at this as investing in the person. Sometimes they'll invest in an entrepreneur with a great idea even if they don't believe in the idea, because they see it as investment in that person. Even if that business fails they might be able to invest in the next one, and maybe that one will succeed. It's a kind of skills development.
I think there's a certain aspect of almost philanthropy that our members are undertaking. If you really look at them, you'll see that they are really nation builders. It's probably only 10% of the accredited investor class that has the stomach for this kind of thing. That's why I think we need to encourage them to do more of this.
I don't think there are any easy answers in terms of how we get institutional capital to do this. As long as you're responding to a shareholder or somebody else.... Even our members have a hard time sometimes in dealing with their families and trying to explain to them how they're taking these risks.