I get the sense that the financial motivations - such as they are - may only be part of it; perhaps only a very small part of it.

I’d bet a lot of people do it for the status, because they want to be able to describe themselves as investors.

Whether or not that makes them chumps to people who actually do make real money as investors doesn’t matter so much because they aren’t the target audience for the status message.

Less cynically, there’s also a motivation, at least amongst some, to help people building startups.

I enjoy seeing geniuses who hit winning lottery tickets first go lose it all reinvesting in the lottery.

I know someone who, at least over the last decade of so, says that he would have done far better just putting money in a NASDAQ index than doing angel investing.

fair enough .. how do we fund the next generation of tech development ?

Governments giving money as science grants ?

Are you against all VC investment in startups ?

Philanthropy donations ?

or.. would millionaires be the people starting new startups and doing science research to scratch their own itch ?

I guess the history of science and tech has examples of all of the above.