The McDonaldization of Venture Capital

The author argues that venture capital is experiencing a process of "McDonaldization," characterized by extreme efficiency, calculability, predictability, and control driven by capital agglomeration. Massive funds and consensus-driven investments—particularly dominated by artificial intelligence—are concentrating capital into predictable outcomes at the expense of diverse, contrarian innovation. The author questions whether this system, optimized for scale and safe returns, can still imagine a genuinely different future. Open article →