alt Hacker NewsGrowth != Profits
I would propose not funding them at all, because so much of the system has turned into outright grift, with wildly implausible "companies" receiving brain-melting sums so investors can pay themselves huge fees.
The companies all do things like "Pitch decks as a service" or "Coworker cafes in space" or "Fusion permanently two years from now, until we spend the money on drugs then pivot to military contracting" or "AI-powered gig economy pet sitters for the Bay Area".
There's a lot of happiness around, but there are also more useful things everyone could be doing.
That’s already an option? You can get small business loans, bootstrap, get grants etc that don’t require massive growth.
You can found or work for a company like this anytime you like. But the “leeches” the op mentions are a voluntary funding mechanism for a particular kind of company. If you found or work for one of those the trade off is clear.
You can’t have it both ways though. As an employee you can’t live off the largesse of investors as you build the business and then not expect them to want an elevated return on that risk.