Venture capital is suffering even as the U.S. stock market is surging.

A few years ago, the startup market was setting one record after another, fueled by low interest rates, U.S. government stimulus spending to counter the COVID-19 lockdown and AI enthusiasm.

AI fever has gotten worse due to the smoke-and-mirrors of ChatGPT and other large-language models, but now interest rates are higher, government stimulus is waning and startups are struggling. The fact that startups are suffering while the overall U.S. stock market is surging suggests that investors are finally realizing that startups no longer are $100 bills on the sidewalk. READ MORE